


The Rescue

by ssfr



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate magic rules, Canonical Character Death, Death Eaters are rapists, F/F, Other, References to lesbian sex, firearms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 09:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11310798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssfr/pseuds/ssfr
Summary: Pansy has nightmares about things she hopes never happened.  Luna dreamwalks.  Ginny has to help.Written, mostly, over a week during the summer of 2007, while I was deployed to Iraq.Rape-rape flashbacks & nightmares, mind rape, mental contamination, self-sacrifice, and lots of Death Eaters dying.





	The Rescue

Author: W. Suika Roberts  
Title: The Rescue  
Fandom: Harry Potter/AU  
Rating: T (violence, rape, and character death)  
Pairings: Girl!Harry/Myrtle/Cho, OC/Pansy, Luna/Ginny, Luna/Ginny/Pansy, OC/Luna/Ginny/Pansy (I think that's it)  
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I haven't licensed Harry Potter. Same with Sailor Moon. _Dark Kingdom Rising_, which is the version of _Sailor Moon_ they have watched, is mine, for what that is worth.

Afterwards, Luna never could be sure if she had _intended_ to wander the dreams of Hogwarts students, or if she'd done started it accidentally, or if it was destined, like the Sailor Moon song . . . "Shoukairou ga shorto sunzen, ima sugu aitai you" she bounces a moment, the music playing in her head, then hauls her chain of thought back to what she was trying to think, what was it again, oh, right, despite the lack of intentionality to her dreamwalking, she quite enjoys it, generally.

Except when she doesn't.

Like now.

Normally, distractible is good. She likes being distractible, it means she can put more attention to the things that need it . . . but right now it means she keeps dropping into 

`Pansy,' she takes the girl's hand, puts the round in it, enjoys the grateful look on her face, the way she turns her full attention back to the shiny thing in her hand, `This is a round. The back part is the case, at it's back there is a little brass cup, filled with fulminate of mercury, called a primer,' she turns Pansy's hand to show her the back of the case, `Around that is the base, then the rim. The body of the case is filled with a non-magical potion called "smokeless nitro powder," and at the front is the bullet. There are many kinds, but this one is a jacketed hollowpoint, which has a lead core-'

`A brass case, and a hole in the front. What's the hole for?'

`That lets the bullet get bigger around when it hits the target-'

`So flies like a small thing, and hits like a bigger one? These are good for killing people?'

`They're supposed to be.'

`Will it make his head explode?'

Which is much preferable to the nightmare Pansy's friend is remembering, the young brown-haired muggle girl bound, naked, blood streaking her twelve-year-old form, watching as Draco Malfoy turns her mother onto her belly, the older woman whimpering and crying, bruised, bleeding from where the rope-bind is cutting into her flesh as she struggles, both of them too hoarse to continue screaming.

`Stupid muggles,' Malfoy groans, sinking his bloody cock into the woman's ass, `Pansy shouldn't be associating with scum like you,' he whimpers, cringing, the fresh scabs rubbing free from the concentric tears where someone tried to bite his cock off, `I'll show you not to touch my girl,' he pants, `You won't bother her ever again,' he grabs the woman's hair, `Won't try and feed her your stupid muggle food, make her complain about good English food,' he pulls, and she screams, finally, a ragged keen.

`How much damage would it do?' Pansy repeats, trying to touch her friend, who's too far lost in the past to be tangible, with her free hand.

`You put it in a gun,' Luna takes out the 1911A1 again, drops the mag and feeds the round into the top of it, `A round will come out of the ejection port, here,' she touches the rounder part showing in a cut on the top of the weapon, `Catch it,' and pulls the slide back. Pansy catches the little bit of metal, watches Luna lock the slide, the other girl still wrapped around her from behind, `The slide is recoil operated, it goes forward, driven by a spring, forcing a round into the chamber. The chamber is at the end of the barrel, which is rifled,' she turns the weapon to show Pansy the inside of the barrel, `to spin the bullet and make it fly straight,' she flicks the slide release, and the slide slips forward with a *shnick*, `The trigger is pulled, which releases the hammer,' she put her finger on each part as it is named, `and the hammer strikes the firing pin, driving it into the primer.'

`The primer is full of fulminate of mercury, which burns really hot when it is hit, and lights the "smokeless nitro powder" which blows up, and shoves the bullet out the barrel,' Pansy smiles, `And puts a jagged hole in anything that gets in its way.'

`The powder burns, it'd blow up the gun if the powder blew up, and it'll only put holes in things that aren't tougher than the bullet.'

`People aren't tougher, or Muggles wouldn't use guns,' Pansy says, quite reasonably, `What are the other levers?'

`Magazine release,' Pansy slots the mag, then drops it again, `Safety, and grip safety.'

`Why do you need a safety?'

Luna clears the pistol again, hands it to Pansy, `Always treat it like it's loaded, never point it at anything you don't want to shoot, and keep your finger out of the trigger guard until you're ready to shoot something.'

`Right,' Pansy holds the weapon to one side, whimpers as Malfoy Vanishes the two muggles, then brings the weapon up and closes her eyes, pulling the trigger to a faint *click* as the hammer drops.

`You need to aim, and keep your eyes open. The bullet will go where you put it, not where you want it to go,' Luna says, `Line up the front sight with the rear sight, just put the post in the notch there, get them level, and put them on the center of mass of your target,' she clicks the hammer back, `Both hands on the gun, supporting hand wrapped, thumb tucked up by the firing hand thumb, don't let either of them get behind the slide, and squeeze gently.'

*Click*

`Don't let your wrists move, but leave your elbows loose, the recoil will push the gun up and back, let them move with the movement, but keep your wrists stiff, or the gun can jam on you,' she clicks the hammer back.

*Click*

`Good,' Luna clicks the hammer back again.

Malfoy's long gone by the time Pansy tires of the lesson, `This will keep him from hurting anyone else,' Pansy checks that the safety is on, then drops the gun to her side, turns in Luna's arms, presses her face to the younger girl's neck, `But she's gone, it's my fault, and I'll never see her alive again,' cold tears drip down Luna's chest, through her shirt.

`Shh. She's safe, it's not your fault, and you'll see her again,' Luna says, wrapping her arms around the crying girl and hugging her close.

`He Vanished her. He knew I loved her, so he hurt her, and he _Vanished_ her.'

`Vanished things can be unVanished,' Luna tells her, `And-'

`What?! McGonagall never said--'

`Most of you are still having problems Vanishing things, and unVanishing them is much harder,' Luna says, hugging her again, `Malfoy's hurting her is his fault, not yours. You never hurt her, never, or she wouldn't be able to reach you now.'

`Reach me?' Pansy pulls back, `But this is my dream.'

`This is her dream-'

`Pansy!' a crying twelve-year-old grabs Pansy away from Luna, and holds her tight. Pansy shrinks in her grip, until she is also a twelve-year-old again, the .45 seeming even larger in her hand. She holds it awkwardly after an aborted attempt to wrap that hand around her friend.

`And she loves you, and she knows you'll save her,' Luna takes the gun from Pansy, loads it, and tucks it back into the in waist band holster at her left hip, which promptly becomes completely innotable. She gathers the two crying girls to her, and forces the shift, the muggle kitchen swirling into a warm red-curtained bed as she Walks them out of that dream.

Ginny sits up, `Have you been cheating on me?' she walks over on her knees, `They don't look anything like me, so I doubt they're mine.'

`You know Pansy,' Luna strokes one dark head, `And this is her girl Pentagram. Pentagram Potter.'

`That's just,' Ginny smiles, `They're so cute like this!' She throws her arms around all three of them, and wraps them in a tight hug.

`I didn't know you're Luna's girl,' Pansy says, a look too old for her twelve-year-old face in her eyes.

`You can call me 'Gram, everyone does,' a look that makes Ginny whimper flickers in the back of the girl's brilliant blue eyes.

`Not everyone, Ent,' Pansy tells her, clutching her hands tightly.

`Only Pansy gets to call me that,' Pentagram tells Ginny firmly.

`That's only proper,' Ginny nods.

`I don't know about you, but I'm getting cold,' Luna tells them, `Would you prefer to be in the middle, or at one edge?'

Pentagram looks at Pansy, then at the two older girls, `In the middle, please,' she says.

After a few minutes they settle, Luna in her uniform shirt and skirt, her stockings having disappeared with her shoes when she Walked into Ginny's dream, spooning up around Pentagram. Pentagram pulls Luna's hand underneath her, and tucks it into the pocket of her denim jacket, pulling one of Luna's legs up over a jean-clad thigh at the same time, Luna's bare foot resting on her black boot.

Pansy's school uniform vanishes as Pentagram pulls her close, tucks her head under her chin, then is replaced by Segmi, complete with Kabuto. Pansy shifts, uncomfortable, and Luna starts humming Moonlight Densetsu. Pentagram looks at her, scowls, and the Segmi shifts to Sailor Saturn's uniform, complete with boots. Pansy looks at her gloved hand, `Whatever you want,' she says, `But if I'm Saturn you should be Chibi-Moon,'

`OK,' Pentagram's black denim bleaches to pink and white, then condenses into the familiar uniform, complete with LBV. She looks down, notices that Pansy doesn't have hers, and adds it, along with the Silence Glaive.

Ginny heeds Luna's gentle tug, and spoons up against Pansy's back, looking into Luna's eyes, "You'll tell me why we have enough combat power to destroy the planet in bed with us when we wake up, right?"

"Of course," Luna answers just as silently, `I need to show you something, when you wake up. Over lunch?'

`Sure,' Pansy says into Pentagram's slight chest.

`Drag me off,' Ginny says.

`I'll follow, wait at the bottom of the stairs?' Half of the stairs in the castle have one end in the atrium in front of the Great Hall, so waiting at the top would require more knowledge of where they actually are going.

`I will,' Luna answers, hugs them all close.

Luna wakes up crying and checks the .45 under her pillow.

It is very close to invisible until she unholsters it, then glitters impossibly, as if it had been accumulating the light for the display, gold inlay on polished stainless steel, mother of pearl grips with a golden crescent moon. She checks to make sure the ambidextrous safety is still set, drops the fourteen round double-stack magazine, presses on the top round, and checks to make sure there is a round in the chamber before she slaps the magazine back home again. It had taken a bit of research to decipher why that was one of the stock animation sequences from Sailor Moon, but she understands the reasoning now.

The glow has vanished, so she reholsters the weapon, and tucks it back under her pillow, her wand going behind her ear before she crawls out from under the covers to get dressed.

"I'm acting like a Darkie," Luna muses to herself even as her hands settle the innoticible pouches on each thigh, each with three twenty-round magazines, fastening the garter belt before clicking the thigh rig straps shut around the top of her stockings, then fastens the little silver clips that hold her stockings to them. "I mean, we know there's people trying to kill us, and Draco needs to be shot, but," she pulls her uniform shirt over her sports bra, buttons it, then steps into and belts the skirt in place, the grenades already heavy on the right side, "Darkie training sim or not," she slips the holstered .45 into her waistband just behind the point of her hip, "This is a little paranoid for Hogwarts," she checks the knives clipped in the lower corner of each hip pocket, and shrugs into the jacket, clips her tie into place at her throat, slips the french-wire holding each radish-shape into each ear peircing, and gives her necklace of butterbeer corks a firm, gentle tug between each pair of corks, then drops it over her head and shrugs into her robes.

A few minutes later she's once more glad to have discovered bikini underwear, since the zippered ones she'd first found in the Basic Training Center, somehow located behind the door that's sometimes in the seventh floor hallway across from the tapestry of some angry trolls teaching a wizard how to dance, were almost as annoying as having to unclip her stockings, unfasten the thigh rigs, and then refasten everything afterwards. She wiggles the thin fabric back over the thigh rigs, checks her reflection in the stone stall door, then goes to wash her hands and face.

Once breakfast is mostly over she stands, drops a note on her plate, and walks over to the Gryffindor table. She smiles at Angharad, such a better name, and grabs Ginny by her hair, `Come,' she says.

Ginny looks back, and gives her a luscious smile, `Right here?'

`If you want, but come with me now,' the look she turns on Ginny is almost perfectly serious, but the right corner of her lip and the corners of her eyes twitch, give away her amusement.

`Oh, that will be difficult,' Ginny says, standing, `You take a while, when you're in a mood like this,' she smiles at her friends, and waves a little as she is drawn from the Great Hall.

`What was that?' Hermione turns to Ron and Harry.

`Didn't you notice?' Harry asks.

`Notice?' Ron asks, just as confused as Hermione.

`Ginny's,' she pauses a moment, `Luna's,' she pauses again, and decides too much information would be the perfect answer, `I was having a nice little wank, thinking about Cho, and Ginny walked in and started kissing on us, in my fantasy, and Luna walked in, kissed me, and said Ginny was hers, and you were here when she said she wasn't sharing.'

`Oh,' Hermione says. Ron is looking at the ceiling, holding his nose.

Hermione slaps him, `That only happens in anime, goof.'

`Then what's this?' Ron holds out his hand, which is bloody to his wrist.

`OK, maybe you need to wank more.'

Ron goes quite boneless, drops, his head meeting the flags with a dull *THOCK*, and lays there quite unconscious.

`Oh dear, you broke him,' Harry says, `Let's get him to--'

`Mobilicorpus!' Snape snaps, hefting the boy, `Granger, run ahead and clear a path. Potter, let Madam Pomphrey know we're coming.'

-

`It's a good thing there isn't much in there to be damaged,' Severus says, once Madame Pomphrey has taken charge of Ron, `Or else I'd suggest you make your friend start wearing a helmet.'

`I broke him,' Hermione whines, trying to burrow into the taller girl's belly after Harry shoved off her assault on Harry's tender breasts, wincing.

`Oh? How did you do that?'

`He got a nosebleed 'cause Harry was talking about how Luna's claimed Ginny, and she's his sister, that's kinda wrong,' she drifts.

`Maybe he was thinking about being Ginny?' Harry asks.

`Oh, yeah, that'd be better,' Hermione nods, `and I said that only happens in anime, and he waved a handful of blood at me, and I said he should wank more, and he just passed right out.'

`You're probably right, Granger,' Severus says, `He does need to wank more,' he looks up at the ceiling, `That might have helped with the pratfulness, sorry.'

The shadows on the ceiling seem to shift, the reflected glints seeming to form a smile for an instant before going back to normal.

Severus smiles up at the ceiling, `Thank you,' it glimmers placidly back.

Ginny follows Luna into a tiny office-nook tucked under one of the few non-mobile staircases, then pulls her back against her, one hand on the blonde's belly, the other on her right hip, and bends over to kiss her neck, `You needed me, mistress of my dreams?' she whispers.

Luna shivers, turns in Ginny's arms, and looks up into her eyes, `Yes,' she catches Ginny's hands and draws one down each side from her ribs, down over her waist, the grenades and pistol at the top of her skirt, down to the thigh-rigs before she lets go of her hands.

Ginny reverses the motion, cups Luna's hips in her hands, and lifts her onto the built-in desk, where she leans back against the vacant shelving, wrapping her legs around Ginny's waist, crossing her ankles so her uniform shoes rest on the tall girl's butt. Ginny presses closer, and tucks her face into Luna's hair, `So, what do you need of me?'

Luna nuzzles Ginny's hair aside, slipping both hands under the waistband of her skirt, pulling her closer, `I wandered into their dreams months ago. Most of them are nice, happy dreams, two little girls who love each other, but don't understand it yet. There's a naughty dream, from winter break of Pansy's second year, and there's the bad one. The bad one hurts Pansy so badly, and it's hard on Pentagram, too. I needed to do something about it, and found a room with a Dark Kingdom BTC in it.'

`But that's an anime,' Ginny whimpers, nibbling at Luna's ear.

`But that's what I found. There's books, and training droids, and expert systems, and weapons. No people, no animals, no link to Megumi, but everything else is as it should be.'

Ginny nods, stroking Luna's back with her hands.

`Last night I gave her, Pansy, another lesson, and she broke down, cried, finally. She didn't know things could be unVanished.'

`Pentagram was Vanished? When?' Ginny gasps, eyes wide, staring.

`Right after. Winter Break of our first year,' Luna kisses Ginny's neck soothingly, `Pansy had been trying to work herself up to vengeance, to enough upset to cast a killing curse, but now it's different.'

Ginny nods, tucking her face into Luna's hair, `Now it's a rescue. Now we need to save this little girl who's been lost in the dark for three years.'

`She seems sane, or as sane as one could expect after what she's been through,' Luna nibbles on Ginny's collarbone a minute, `Once we get the two of you trained, we're going. We should be able to Floo out of the Hogshead, but all of us will need to be able to unVanish people, and we'll probably need Draco's wand, so we'd do best to kill him first.'

Ginny shivers, `I don't like that, the way that sounds.'

`He's a rapist. I've admissible evidence of him raping a twelve-year-old muggle girl and her mother, if we need to use it.'

Fat slow Ginny-tears drip into Luna's shirt, `I'm so sorry.'

`After the first few times it shifted to third person. I think that's worse,' Luna clenches Ginny to her with bruising force.

Ginny doesn't complain, just squeezes her back.

Pansy twitches, reaches to check the LBV she isn't wearing, has never worn in real life, wouldn't even be able to get at without ripping the buttons off her shirt, that first gesture of most of the Sailor Senshi's equipment checks, the half-instinctive ammo count.

Ent was always Mercury, or Ranma, when they played Sailor Moon, twelve ten-round mags down her front, two fifty-round P90 subgun mags on either side of her back, two frisbee grenades, and an impossible array of things around her belt, including a grappling hook and cord, or if they're playing in R time, Desert Eagle on her left thigh, sixteen mags, dozens of shotgun shells, and a slightly different array of things on her belt. The gear on Mercury's belt changed during the Sailor Moon MR mini series, and they would always get into arguments over what should be on it.

Ranma started with too much stuff, as befit a newbie, three .45s, a katana, an M3 she at least had enough sense not to carry, a couple hundred rounds in ten-round mags, and a bunch of wooden stakes. Within six episodes she was down to just sword, stakes, and a single .45, and she stayed there until after Discordia joined them.

Pansy didn't like being Faith, who only carried stakes or the occasional random melee weapon, but Discordia never carried anything, so Pansy only learned Umi's checks, Lentil, that settling shrug to seat the paired .45s on her back, eight, Umi is tall, twenty-round mags down her front, and finishing by pulling on her balanced driving gloves, even if she lost or destroyed them earlier in the episode and is not wearing them after she checks them . . .

Pansy pulls the gloves on, works her fingers to settle the powdered tool steel weights, and folds her bare hands on the lab table in front of her, turning her head to look to her right. No one lays their left hand on her elbow.

She stares back at her hands, tears clawing at her chest and eyes, and tries not to blink too much, not to dislodge the tears loosened by the familiar gesture, by finishing the check without Ent placing her hand on her elbow, also posing.

It is with great dignity that she walks out of Potions past Severus, Harry, and Hermione coming in.

Pansy skips lunch, drawing her feelings around herself like an invisibility cloak, her dark hair around her, feeling like it would somehow be OK again if she can just remember Saturn's checks. She carried an M3, and the Silence Glaive, and wore a dark, purple or black, LBV. Three fourty-round mags on each thigh, and a pair of black .45s on her shoulders, and probably six mags, but it might have been twelve if they were ten-rounders, but Pansy can't remember her checks . . she'd seen them, once or twice, but Saturn mostly arrived out of no where and killed whoever needed killing, often a sharp *crunch* as the Silence Glaive's butt crushed the man's, it was most often a man, skull, or a flash of blood and gore as the blade cut him into pieces, a quiet "look up," *Crack*. She killed almost as many as Moon, but didn't hurt about it, "it was his time to die," when questioned, rarely more, never less.

Moon couldn't heal, however, and Saturn _always_ healed somebody.

The door to the Great Hall swung open a bit, and two girls step out, orange and blonde, tall, slender, and shorter, voluptuous. Who would work well? There weren't any orange-haired Sailors, and their heights are wrong for the Witches, but Ent's hair -- she'd look funny in pink. So by personas? Soft butch and hard femme? Straight man and beardo?

`We were waiting for you to come in, Pansy,' Luna says softly, but loud enough for Pansy.

Luna would make a good Sergeant, Pansy decides as she stands, and Ginny can be a butterbar. Half a smile finds its way onto her face for the first time that day.

`And the door is here,' Luna touches the blank wall, `but you need to want it, and it needs to know what you want, so it won't show up right away, sometimes,' Luna steps back, then steps forward and unlocks the six flush-mount deadbolts on the steel door, each with a different key, and grabs the heavy ring welded on for a door pull, and sets herself, pulling hard. Pansy and Ginny reach to help, and the door swings easily, once it gets moving, it's just very heavy. It jerks to a stop, inch-thick links straining as the chain catches the door once it is fully open, and starts to swing closed. All three girls easily make it inside before the door closes, and help Luna catch it, holding it closed while she gets the first deadbolt locked. Three of them have a keyless latch on the inside, `We shouldn't have to worry about people escaping from in here, but.'

Pansy nods, and Ginny looks at Luna in bewilderment.

`"Never take unneeded risks."' Pansy quotes, smiles a little, continues, `"The armed citizen is the root of Democracy, injure that root, and the tree of freedom will wither and die."'

Luna nods, `Queen Serenity to the Dark Horde, Constitution Day speech, end of the Sailor Moon A's movie, "That tree protects your children and your grandchildren, your dreams and your immortality. I alone cannot protect --"

`*BLAM* fifty-cal between the eyes, knocking her off her feet. The shooter's on his feet, and running--'

`He's dropped his weapon, and Uranus gets there before the bullets, knocking him down, "Everyone," Queen Serenity's voice echoes over the plaza, and the Horde turns to look at her, weapons sounding like popcorn as they're put back on safe, the mostly dark brown faces breaking out in grins, "I can't be everywhere at once, no one can, but where any Dark Kingdom Citizen is, the Dark Kingdom stands with her! I stand with her! Do the right thing, do your best to stay alive, and protect those most important to you, your fellow Citizens and their children, and _we_ will do our best!"

Pansy joins her for the last line, in harmony, `"A mother protects her children, and a Nation protects her Mothers."'

Ginny stares, entranced, as the two turn to each other with shining eyes, then wrap their arms around each other, sobbing, muttering words she can't hear, then sits down on the warm grass next to them and pulls them into her lap.

None of them go to their afternoon classes, instead they work up a training schedule. They start right away, the training droids gentle, for droids, but firm, well-trained themselves, able to recognize the girl's limits, and push them to them.

Pansy sits on a blanket next to Ginny, comforted by the subtle wrongness of the sunset, the familiar setting of the Pyongyang Basic Training Center, the heat expected but unfamiliar, the vegetation wrapping the area in comforting dark green, the grass paler under them, cooking an MRE with its heater, talking Ginny through the familiar, never before done process, `just add water. When it's warm, pull the pouch out, cut it open, put Tabasco on it, stir it up, and eat it with the spoon,' she waves the brown plastic spoon wrapped in plastic.'

`Don't forget to,' Luna drops down next to them, `Complain about it.'

`Yeah, that's important, unless you're from someplace horrible, an Afgan, or a Chechan, or African, then you only complain if you've been in the Deployable Forces for years. If you're Muslim, just make sure you get one that's marked Halal. They're generally Kosher, too, but check if that's important.'

`And if you're,' Ginny racks her memory, for the religion associated with the bar with a crescent moon on either side, the five fingered hand of, of Eris. Eris Discordia, same as the Sailor, `Discordian?'

`Eat hotdogs on Fridays, if you want, and you can get them,' Pansy says, smiling again, already anticipating the next question.

`What's--' Ginny starts.

`"A hot dog?"' all three finish in near-perfect harmony.

After explanations, incredulous requests for clarification, and further confusing explanation they pack their trash back into the MRE bags, and they drag after Luna to the Library to find a copy of the Principia Discordia.

Pansy and Ginny end up next to each other, reading together since Pansy's never actually read it, but can quote nearly half of it from memory, quote Usagi and Ranma and Ami quoting it, at least. Luna watches until it gets too dark to read easily, then holds a red LaserBrite light with tube and a white one on the other end for them to read by, flopped first on top of, then between the other two.

Finished reading Pansy and Ginny look at each other, `We need dogtags, so we can put Discordian on them,' Pansy says, firmly.

`There's a dogtag machine, of course,' Luna pulls hers out, `But there's a risk of SN overlap.'

`If we use a default number, that might not be a problem, if we chose random upper-half numbers?'

`Less likelyhood, anyway, which is why,' she shows her tag, 3173-503-424242.

`I want 429669,' Ginny says, `The numastics look good to me.'

`I want 121415, but if we reverse that that gives 514121,' Pansy opens her eyes, `Yeah, that'll do.'

`The 'puter's sposed to give you the number,' Luna says, then shakes her head, `but the 'puter is sposed to ask Megumi for the day's numbers, lock one, and assign it, so,' she gathers the others close, `sleep on it.'

`"I'll give you an answer in the morning" I like the TV-size version of that song so much better,' Pansy quotes, then comments.

`The real version is eight and a half minutes,' Luna tells her softly, `Go to sleep.'

`Yeah,' Ginny rolls, resting her head on Luna's breast, wondering, suddenly and irrelevantly, when she changed clothes.

Pansy turns away from them, curling up around her belly.

Luna reaches, grabs her waist, but can't turn her from her current position, `Get her over here,' she tells Ginny softly.

`Pansy,' Ginny says, `Come over here, cuddle with us.'

`No.'

`I'm good enough to spoon you in your dream, my dream, whatever, but not in real life?'

`Ent needed me, and maybe being near me helps her feel cleaner.'

`Then maybe being near me will help you feel cleaner,' Ginny's hand trembles on Pansy's hip, `I don't know what you've gone through, what you're going through. I don't want to know, I just want to do everything I can to make sure it never happens to anyone else, and I can start by trying to make you stronger, so I want to. Please,' Ginny barely even notices brushing her breast over Luna's face as she reaches to turn Pansy to look at her, `Join us?'

`No,' Pansy says, rolling over and brushing her cheek against Ginny's before slipping her hand inside Luna's BDU top and pillowing her head on Luna's shoulder.

One of the droid instructors wakes them, `Get to the chow hall for breakfast. You've got ten minutes for personal hygiene first. After chow, we'll assign bunks and the the two new students will get their initial training issue,' she looks down on them, `Get going. Use the latrine in Barracks Seven.'

Half an hour later, their new gear stowed by their bunks, they wait as Luna locks the door behind them, then vanishes, and walk into a crowd shortly thereafter, and Luna realizes something, `It's just after lunch,' she smiles, `That will make things much easier to schedule.'

`What do you mean?' Ginny asks.

Pansy smiles, `We were in there for hours, and only half an hour's passed.'

`If that, we had to walk up there, and out here again,' Luna says, `So we need to figure out how much time dilation,' she pauses, `Contraction? Well, from here, it's getting smaller, but in there it gets larger, so,' she turns to the other two, walking backwards, `We need to make some quantitative measurements so we can figure out how much time we can spend in there and still make our classes and spend time with Pentagram. I couldn't find anyone else's dreams while I was in there, and you two were too tired to have interesting dreams.'

`Right,' Ginny says, wrapping a hand around Luna's upper arm, `We'll see you after class?' she tells Pansy.

`I'll be there,' Pansy spins, and heads to her own class.

`What are the dangers of your dreamwalking?' Ginny asks Luna, after seating them both, uncharacteristically, in the back of the class.

`Oh, I've run into most of them already,' Luna smiles, leans over, nuzzles against Ginny's shoulder, `Persona contamination, Walking into trauma-induced dreams-'

`You couldn't escape?'

`I could have woken up, run, but I couldn't leave them to face that alone,' Luna says softly, `I think that's one of the reasons for the persona contamination, actually. You can also run into people trying to attack you, and some people think that Walking into other people's daydreams and masturbatory fantasies is also a danger, but I rather like that,' she presses her cheek against Ginny, then sits back, turning her attention to the front of the class.

Ginny watches her, worries, and wonders how such a strong person got Sorted into Ravenclaw.

The foot-thick steel door jerks to a stop at the end of its chain, `Don't let it close yet,' Luna says, and runs off.

She comes back with a pair of digital watches, and synchronises the seconds on them, so they're telling the same time. She hands one to Ginny and walks out into the hall.

`How do you read this?' Ginny holds it to Pansy.

`The big numbers are hours, minutes, and seconds. The small numbers are date and day.'

`Fifteen thirty-seven in fifteen seconds,' Luna says.

`Same,' Pansy calls back, looking at the watch Ginny's holding.

`Huh,' Luna lifts the visor of a convenient suit of armor, and straps the watch onto the supporting frame inside, `We'll come back in a couple hours to check,' she says, and they close the door and lock it. 

Pansy straps the watch on Ginny's wrist, and Ginny finds herself fascinated by the tiny slender fingers. She catches Pansy's hand as she draws it back, nearly engulfing it in her own paw, and draws it up, `They're so--' she stops herself.

`What?' Pansy frowns, tries to pull her hand back.

`Cute,' Ginny says, blushing, and lets go, `Luna's hands are lovely and soft too, but your,' she turns her back, `Ignore me, everybody sensible does.'

`Luna doesn't.'

`That's not,' Ginny stops, tries again, `That doesn't do much to show she's sensible.'

`It's not polite to think your girl's a nut.'

`Who else would put up with me? I was a cute little thing, but Riddle and,' she shakes her head, `I've turned into such a gawk.'

`You're fourteen, you're supposed to be a gawk,' Pansy takes Ginny's hand, and kisses the taller girl's palm.

`You're not,' Ginny sighs at the sight of her huge hand in Pansy's little ones.

`You don't want to know why,' Pansy says.

Ginny looks at her, at her hand cradled gently between Pansy's, and swallows, nods, `Then tell me how I can help,' she orders, wondering if the fact that she does want to know is morbid curiosity or masochism, since she'd really prefer that neither of *them* knew either. Who would rescue Pentagram, then?

She blinks back sudden tears, and gently gathers Pansy to her.

Pansy lets her.

Ginny presses the side of her face to Pansy's hair, realizing that the embrace is more for her sake than Pansy's. It's probably all for her sake, but Pansy hugs her back, so it will be alright eventually.

Hours later, when they fall into their bunks, all three are too tired to remember to check on the time difference.

After breakfast chow Luna goes out into the hallway to check, `Fifteen forty-five on the dot!' she calls back, then closes the visor again, leaving the watch there.

`It's been almost eighteen hours in here,' Pansy frowns, drawing invisible numbers in the air as she calculates, `And I'd guess that it took you thirty seconds from when you left the door, but that was ten to fifteen seconds after we opened the door, and that was nearly a minute after we started unlocking,' she frowns, `So we've got at least a P.O.E.E week inside for every hour outside, and maybe a P.O.E.E. month every night.'

`Do you want to leave her alone all night?' Luna asks, placing her hands on Pansy's shoulders.

`No!' Pansy shakes her head violently, `There's an empty room a hundred and fifty meters down the corridor, we can put a trip flare on the door, and take an alarm clock to wake us?'

`Good,' Luna nods, `And there's a dreamwalker technique to quickly fall into REM sleep. It only took me a week or two to learn, I'll start teaching you tonight.'

Ginny nods, `Please.'

Four weeks, twenty days, later, they open the door again, and Luna darts out to check the watch, and back again, `Nineteen thirty-one and thirty-three seconds,' Luna tells them. Ginny pulls the door closed, amazed at how much lighter it feels, despite their early-evening tiredness.

`Another forty days, then out for an hour, and back for,' Ginny pauses, `Are we going to breakfast in the Great Hall?'

Pansy and Luna share a look, then nod.

`I think we have to. We can't miss all our meals for some project,' Luna says, `And I want to spend at least three months on training, so we can't just vanish until Monday without spooking people.'

`It's Friday out there, isn't it?' Ginny asks, surprised.

`It is!' Pansy smiles, `So we come back after breakfast, and don't have to come back out until early Sunday morning, and which gives us another two months before anyone's really going to notice,' she pauses, `We'll need to practice Vanishing and Unvanishing, and working with other people's wands, so we can unVanish Ent.'

`We'll get some creatures from Professor McGonagall after breakfast Sunday, then,' Luna says, `For now, lets get some sleep.'

Ginny watches the other two as they walk up the path. Nearly a lunar month together, dreaming the same dreams. She still feels like Ginny, but sometimes she finds herself doing something Pansyish, or something glitters like a snorkack and catches her attention for a few minutes. Some of it, well, not the snorkacks, she can blame on this constant immersion in their shared otaku fantasy world, where "he needed killing" is a valid defense for a murder charge, if the man did, in fact, need killing.

The only way Draco would not "need killing" is if Muggles are not people. They are, at least for the moment. She hopes she's not gone completely bonkers, like those two poor girls in _Heavenly Creatures_, but figures she'd decide she wasn't, even if she was, so.

Thirty days later they are starting pistol work, and she smiles at the array laid out, `Did the room get these right, or are they like my father's Anglia?'

`They're right,' Luna says, `Near as I can tell. I had a friend of my father send me a box of .45ACP to check, before I realized just how much time is compressed in here,' she sets a cardboard box on the range bench in front of her, unshrinks it. The round she pulls out loads just fine in the .45SMS she draws from the back of her tactical red BDUs, and she sets it down next to the weapons the other two are going to fire, `And the last couple worked just fine. I think the glitter is a side-effect of the innoticiblity, but it also matches the anime. They're incredibly spell-resistant, which matches the anime too.'

`Yeah, guns only really surpassed wands about a hundred years ago, didn't they?'

`A hundred and twenty years, for rate of fire, but a gun only knows one spell, "Make Hole" so wizards just don't appreciate the value of being able to cast that single spell faster than one can aim it,' Luna smiles as the pop-up targets surface, grabs up one gun and draws the other, `Earplugs in?'

Pansy and Ginny nod.

The targets drop, then start their sequence. Twenty-nine targets later Luna drops the right-hand mag, shoots the thirtieth target, and tucks the first gun under her chin as she drops the left-hand mag, locks a replacement in, drops the slide with her trigger finger and fires an instant before the thirty-first target drops, reaching for another mag as she tracks onto the thirty-second target. The right gun hits the fortieth target as it rises, and a score appears in the air before them.

Luna smiles at the other two, `I thought I missed that one, while I was reloading.'

`Wow,' Ginny had fired just enough rounds to know that the forty out of forty Luna just fired wasn't nearly as easy as she made it seem.

The three of them are only pleasantly tired as Luna unlocks the door. Ginny notes the time when they push the door open, checks the watch while the other two lock it, and nods, `Which way?'

Luna points with her chin, and Ginny follows, taking the rear.

Pansy sets the alarm clock while Luna sets the trip flare, tying a cord from the pin to the doorknob, and the body of the flare to a desk. Ginny looks at it and decides that even if the desk catches fire it won't add much trouble.

It is then that she realizes something she should have thought of earl--, she cuts the thought off, draws her wand for the first time in days, and conjures a couple pillows and a blanket, flopping them on the floor.

Pansy stares a moment, `Wow, I actually felt like a Muggle,' she considers, `No, it was "Who is there, and are they a threat," so I guess it was more like a Darkie,' she laughs, and Luna hugs her.

Ginny waves them over, `Take your boots off,' she orders.

`Hai,' Pansy answers, then blinks, putting her hands to her face, `I'm going crazy.'

`It's worse than that,' Luna smiles up at the ceiling, `You're going sane.'

Ginny fights the impulse to tickle her a moment, then looks up to see the same look on Pansy's face, and gives in.

They tickle Luna for a couple minutes, then cuddle up and drop, carefully, into REM sleep.

`Pansy?' Ginny is looking at her tiny little hands, folded in her lap, but they're not her hands, too brown, and not enough freckles, scared, `Have you ever played doctor?' and her voice is wrong, too high even for when her hands were that small.

`What's that?' Pansy asks, her voice far younger, `Is it like Medic?'

`No, not really,' Ginny can feel her cheeks heat, hope, embarrassment, fear making her hands shake, `A visit to a muggle doctor often -- you've seen the TV, they make you take all of your clothes off and poke at you.'

`So you want me to take all my clothes off?'

`Yeah,' Ginny says in a small voice, `I kinda think I kinda like, um, girls, so.' Pansy doesn't say anything so Ginny falls silent, this swirling dread building in her belly, making her want to run away, want to puke.

Finally, `Are you going to take off your clothes?' Pansy asks, continues before Ginny can answer, `Do we take turns? You're very pretty.'

Ginny finally looks up, smiles, `If you want me to,' and starts unbuttoning her pants. Ginny realizes with a little jolt she's in denim pants and a t-shirt, without a bra, sitting on a very muggle bed on a dark blue blanket, her legs still folded tailor-fashion.

Pansy is smiling, reaching behind her, apparently working buttons on her dress. It falls, and she steps out of it, tiny breasts in a little mint green padded bra, tiny blue panties, and black socks which she's kicking off already.

Ginny wiggles to her feet, shaking her legs in turn to get the slightly baggy pants off, shoving down her panties, and pulling her shirt over her head before turning back around to face Pansy.

`You're so pretty, Ent,' Pansy says, tiny hands clutched in front of her, as naked as Ginny -- Pentagram, Ginny suddenly realizes, then relaxes herself, letting herself float with the younger girl.

`You're the pretty one, Pansy,' Pentagram says, `Arm,' she orders, holding out her hands.

Pansy proffers her arm, and Ent takes it. She's held this arm before, this hand, but this time is different. A smile steals onto her face as she runs her hands over each knuckle, bends each finger every which-a-way, fights off, later, the temptation to check how each one tastes. She strokes the forearm, rotates her wrist, turns her hand full-lock each way, enjoying the smooth play of bones and muscles. She palpitates Pansy's elbow, looks up to see Pansy smiling at her.

`Don't you have an elbow?'

`It's hard to look at, and I want to see yours,' Ent smiles back, almost giddy, almost breaks down and licks the soft flesh, almost checks to see if she how much of Pansy's elbow she can fit in her mouth. Later. She palpitates her upper arm, `Make a muscle,' she orders, then demonstrates, `Like this,' curling her arm and making a fist. Pansy's bicep is hard under the soft coat of flesh over it, and Ent almost rubs her face on it.

Pansy gasps.

Ent feels like her smile's going to break her face, rotates Pansy's arm at the shoulder, holds it up and, tempted beyond her control, takes a taste of slightly sweaty unperfumed armpit, and a strange noise escapes her.

Pansy twitches and laughs, `If it smells bad, don't taste it!'

`If armpits smell like this, taste like this, why the fuck do they sell so much deodorant?' Ent asks her, palpitating along Pansy's collarbone.

Pansy winces slightly when Ent presses firmly into the hollow between collarbone and throat, `Maybe guys don't smell like me?'

`Hmm,' Ent maps the edges of ribs and sternum, then back up to the other collarbone. She works her way down the other arm with the same meticulous fascination, and slightly more self-control, managing not to give in to the desire to taste her magical friend.

She traces the large muscles of Pansy's shoulders, palpitating her joints firmly enough to get another wince, then trails down her back, counts her ribs on each side, `thirteen, fourteen,' surprised by the way they taper to fit under the shoulder girdle, she palpitates the muscles of Pansy's chest.

Pansy shoves her back, `Hey! That hurt!'

`What?' Ent asks, then realizes she'd been mauling her girl's breast without even noticing it, `Sorry,' and returns to Pansy's back, palpitating a little more gently, even though all she can feel is the flat sheet of muscle below her ribs and the lumpiness of her spine.

*Soft* It is only after several minutes of entranced stroking that Ent realizes she's still going over the same area, and blushes.

`You like my bum?' Pansy, twisted around to watch, asks, beaming at the other girl.

`It's soft,' Ent says in a small voice, blushing again.

`My turn,' Pansy says, and pulls Ent along to the edge of the bed, `Sit,' she says, pointing at the floor.

Ent does.

`Turn around, back to me,' Pansy says softly, and starts combing through Ent's hair once she does, feeling for lumps, `Your scalp's so pale,' she breathes into Ent's ear, then carefully traces every fold with her fingers, lifts her hair and feels the back of her neck, `You've got a little lump, right here.'

Ent reaches up, `Yeah, I've had that for a while.'

`Pay attention to it, and let me know if it gets any bigger,' Pansy says.

Ent twists around to stare at her in shock.

Pansy smiles, `You made me watch that doctor show, remember?'

`Oh, I made you watch it? You said the two lady doctors were making eyes at each other!'

`They were kissing by halfway through the episode,' Pansy smiles back, capturing Ent's face and tracing over it with gentle fingers, carefully grabbing her eyelashes to look underneath her lids, pushing up on her nose to see it wrinkle.

Ent crosses her eyes to watch that.

After playing with Ent's nose a while Pansy moves on to her other ear, and whispers breathily into it, `I was going to work from the top of you down, but I could,' Pansy stops, shakes her head, her hair brushing Ent's shoulder and back, `Stand up,' she says instead.

Pansy is more indulgent of her whims, and Ent starts to shiver as Pansy explores her hand with eyes, fingers, and lips, her eyes intense, her lips soft. She doesn't remember to breathe until Pansy licks the inside of her elbow, and she gasps. Pansy's hands feel so nice, soft, smooth and gentle, pressing firmly or ticklishly soft, like her lips.

Ent's breath catches when Pansy licks her armpit, and again.

Pansy moans, and Ent wonders if this game had been such a good idea, `Kiss me?' she asks.

Pansy kisses her armpit, and Ent's knees crumple, dropping both of them on the bed. Pansy kisses her way back down Ent's arm, and sucks gently on her knuckles, brushing them with a soft tongue. Ent's legs clench together, and she twists towards Pansy with a soft moan.

*Brawp* *Brawp* Ent's alarm goes off, but Pansy doesn't hear it, running her lips up Ent's arm until she reaches her throat, then kissing her on the lips.

*Brawp* *Brawp* Ent's alarm doesn't go Brawp, it goes buzz, buzz. Ent's hands cup the softness of Pansy's butt as her tongue starts to brush Pansy's.

`It's time to wake up,' Luna says, cupping Ent's breast in gentle fingers, `Ginny.'

`There is no Ginny,' Ent says, smiling, `Only Zuuhl.'

`Oh, Ginny, how deep did you go?' Luna asks.

Pansy slides back off the bed, stands next to Ginny, her woodland camo BDUs swirling into place on her body even as she ages to her fifteen year old self.

`I like it here,' Ent and Ginny say in harmony, then Ginny continues, `She was so happy.'

*Brawp* *Brawp*

`If we work hard, we can rescue her, and she'll be happy again.'

`But there's no way she can be that innocent, that sure that the world isn't going to--' Ginny stops herself from saying "fuck her in the ass with no lube," with Ent's mouth, even though she knows the phrase is Ent's.

`I think I love you, too, Ginny. I'll be OK, you'll see me tomorrow, tomorrow for me, and save me soon, so soon,' Ent separates herself from Ginny, pins the redhead to the bed with her body, and kisses her soundly, `Come back later, go now,' and she stands, woodland camo BDUs wrapping around her as easily as they did around Pansy.

`I will,' she promises, crying into Luna's belly.

*Brawp* *Bra-* Pansy shuts off the alarm, Luna cuddling Ginny close. Pansy joins them for several minutes.

`We should go cuddle in the BTC,' Ginny says, `We're burning days like this.'

Luna stands, drawing the other two with her, and Pansy supports Ginny while Luna packs the trip flare back up.

Ginny hands over the notebook, and Pansy checks the watches and writes times while Luna opens the door. They slip inside, and lock the door behind them.

Luna checks the notebook, `We've got fifty days until breakfast.'

`Good,' Ginny is still sagged against Pansy's shoulder, and Luna comes to help support her on the other side.

`Ginny,' Luna looks her in the eyes, once they're back in the barracks, Ginny slumped, unusually exhausted, on her rack, `May I?'

Ginny lets her out of the empty "big room" behind her eyes, the scared twist to Luna's face yet another reminder of the warning from _FM457, Mind Reading and Mind Reading Countermeasures_: "Mind reading can always be dangerous, however, the mere fact that the reading mind is an invader rouses instinctive defenses. Paradoxically, it is those we trust most, those who trust us most, that are, and are in, the most danger.

"In a tactical questioning or covert ops situation there is very little danger of persona contamination, because defenses are raised by both parties, and limit ambient-channel communication. Without those defenses, either instinctive or practiced, persona contamination is almost certain."

The Luna-Ginny in my head cuddles the Ginny-Luna in her head, but most of her just sits, looking through the portal Ginny opened into that big dark room she keeps now that it is a little bit too late. The Ginny-Luna cradles the Luna-Ginny's dark head to her own bright copper, and Ginny wonders just how much of Ent she's kept.

Luna's gentle touch slips out of the big room, and Ginny lets the tiny island and dark waters, rustling under a starless black sky, fade, then calls them back once for practice, lets them fade back again.

`She's got more of Ent that she does of either of us,' Luna says softly, `And at deeper levels,' she buries Ginny's head in her generous bosom.

Ginny smiles, `I've got this bad feeling she's picked up as much from me, so,' she shrugs, and pulls back to look at Pansy, `May we look at your girly bits? I think Luna will let you look at ours.'

`I think Luna will, too,' Luna says, `But you don't have to.'

Pansy whimpers, `I think I'm broken.'

`I'm too big, but I'm skinny and have tiny little tits,' I wrap Pansy's tiny hand in my own, where it totally disappears, `And we know you like Luna's, so, even if you're broken, it's OK.'

`But what if I am?' Pansy says.

`Then we're going to need a lot of polyjuice potion,' Luna says, unbuttoning her BDU top, `And someone to provide us with little-girl hair,' she pulls her belt open, `And a really good set of curtains,' her breasts bounce as she yanks her t-shirt off, `Somewhere that money can buy anything,' but she smiles at Pansy, `I don't think that will be needed,' she peels her sports bra off, `Do you?'

Pansy shakes her head, reaching for Luna, who leans forward into her touch, `Soft,' she says, so contentedly that Ginny laughs in delight, and Luna's hand tangles in her hair, pulls her up for a kiss.

Ginny lets Pansy take her hand back, then yanks her socks off her long, skinny feet before going after Pansy's and Luna's. She trails light, tickling touches over the four feet in front of her, playing with their sweaty toes, glad that they don't have crumpled little supermodel feet, but their toes are actually almost straight. She holds her hand up against Luna's feet, something she's done before, and Pansy's, something she hasn't, and is both amused and annoyed that her hand is a little longer than either of their feet.

`Ent really likes feet,' Pansy sighs, `Particularly bug feet, but she thinks human feet are neat as well.'

`Ginny likes feet, too, so,' Luna smiles down at her girl, flops down to lift her hips and shed her BDU bottoms and underwear, looks up at the two mostly clothed girls with her, `Some of you are over-dressed,' she says, and kicks her pants to the foot of the bed.

Ginny recognizes that for the order it is, and is quickly down to her underwear. Pansy pouts, `Can't we look at you first?'

`No,' Luna says, posing a little, `Look after stripping.'

`She's not stripping,' Pansy turns her pout on Ginny.

Ginny walks her hands up the bed, her t-shirt dragging over Luna's hip to Pansy, `I'm too tired for this. Please?'

Pansy leans up and kisses her, grabs Ginny's shirt and pulls it up over her breasts. Ginny picks up one hand and ducks her head, and Pansy pulls the shirt over them, and Ginny shakes it off her other hand.

Ginny sits back on Pansy's legs, pulling the other girl up with her, and pulls her BDU top off over her head without unbuttoning it.

Pansy smiles a tousled smile up at her, so Ginny kisses her again, then pulls her shirt from her BDU bottoms, and tosses it after her top, followed by her sports bra.

Pansy cups her own breast in one hand, then smirks, and rips Ginny's sports bra off, fingernails trailing over her skin, leaving faint streaks of red, and cups one exposed breast in her hand, crows happily, `Perfect fit! Smaller than my own!'

Ginny's hand covers Pansy's face from chin to forehead, `What are you saying about perfect fit?'

Pansy shakes free, and captures a tiny nipple in her mouth.

Ginny stops complaining, and pulls her in tighter.

In the morning after breakfast Ginny's distractedly trying to color-match a pink using berry jams and cream cheese. She's not having much luck.

`What are you doing?' Pansy asks.

Luna glances at Ginny's plate and smiles, `Do girls like pink because it advertises?'

Ginny blinks, and looks up at Luna, `I like pink because,' she blushes, turns to Pansy, `Eri spent most of the next day trying to match that pink. She had a much better paint set,' Ginny gestures at her plate, `I think maybe a cranberry jelly would work for the red?' she asks, mostly to herself.

Luna closes her eyes a moment, smiling, `Perhaps. We'd really have an easier time working from life than from memory, Pansy,' she smiles at the other girl, her luminous blue eyes twinkling with rare merriment.

Pansy finally figures out what the other two are talking about, and blushes.

A week before Saturday Morning breakfast Luna staggers back to the barracks, dragging more than they've ever seen. She doesn't even bother to take off her boots, just drops onto the bare rack nearest the door, folds her hands over the shotgun resting on her belly, and groans, `This bitch is so fucking heavy.'

Ginny arrives a half step after Pansy, who picks the gun up, working the strap off of Luna, who has to roll off her now thigh-length braid to let her take it. `It's supposed to be heavy, but isn't this a little ridiculous?'

`Isn't that Ranma's gun?' Ginny asks, `It's supposed to weigh as much as I do,' she takes it, and rocks under the weight.

`Solid tungsten dummy training rounds in five tubes and the chamber, chain in the silver tube, and a vest of the fucking things,' Luna says, `TDTs. And you're heavier than you were when we started training.'

`Oh,' Ginny checks the label roll-stamped under the ejection port, "Husqvarna M10" on the first line, and "Property of 3173-503-424242" on the second, overstruck with an ornate ribbony letter R. `The R is supposed to be for Riot, isn't it?' she asks.

`That's what the FM says, anyway,' Luna holds up her arms, `Get this vest off me.'

Pansy pulls her tactical red BDU top off, and drops it on the mattress, unclips her LBV, and pulls the blonde up out of it, helping her shrug it off her shoulders.

Ginny extends the M10R's stock, and snugs it to her shoulder, her arms trembling as she points it, `And Ranma fires one of these like a pistol?' she watches the blue dot of the aiming light waver the width of a wall locker on the far wall, less than ten meters away.

`Ranma's more than human,' Luna says, `Maybe Hagrid could fire one single-handed without the buttstock,' she puts both hands on the gun, and picks it gently from Ginny's hands, `But no one else I know of.'

Luna tucks the gun under the top of her pillow, and comes back for the vest, which she puts on a thick steel hanger before hanging it on the heavy, short hook under her PT uniform.

Five days later they check each other over, parade blacks straight, Pansy's hair cut flat across the bottom, just off her shoulders, Luna and Ginny's braids trailing past the hem of their BDU tops, and Pansy suddenly laughs, `Can you imagine what sort of looks we'd get if we walked in like this?'

Luna and Ginny look at her, and break out laughing, `It has been a month and a half since any of us wore a skirt, hasn't it? Class Four it is!'

That's when they discover that none of them have civilian clothes, Class Four uniform, that fit. All of them are taller, broader-shouldered, and Luna discovers, to her mild displeasure, that despite eating like it was going out of style she's gotten skinnier.

`It's only a cup size,' Ginny whispers in her ear, Pansy's fingers in her loose bra, cupping her breasts, `And they're still lovely.'

Pansy leans in, and rubs her face in the middle of Luna's bosom, `And you've got cleavage, unlike the rest of us,' she smiles, licks the soft flesh, `So wear a uniform bra, and get dressed.'

`Right,' Luna nods.

Pansy checks ammo, guns, knife, and pulls on her balanced driving gloves, amused by the way they gleam whenever she touches them, then just stop catching the eye, even when one looks for them. She smirks at herself in the mirror, the loose black long-sleeved top, black skirt, black tights and mirror-polished black jungle boots at once a statement of her new allegiance and something close to what she normally wore the day before, almost two months ago.

Ginny has baggy grey jeans bloused at the top of her own polished combat boots, and a t-shirt with "FUCK VOLDEMORT" in big letters, and "Gently With A Chainsaw" in smaller ones underneath it on the front. The back has a man in a flannel shirt waving a chainsaw as he chases an indistinct form in a black robe.

Luna looks at the shirt, and laughs, `Umbridge will die if you wear that shirt,' she says.

`Why's that?'

`She'll attack you, and I'll have to shoot her,' Pansy says, and shrugs. `Wear it to dinner chow Monday.'

`Oh,' Ginny nods, `Right,' she tosses it on her rack, and pulls out a different one, looks at the bright red fabric with golden insignia on the left breast, `No, that's not the proper symbolism,' and puts it back, chosing a plain olive drab one instead.

Luna shakes out her bright peacock-blue crepe skirts, which glimmer with iridescent eyes, and turns her back to the others, `I think my top's caught on my LBV.'

Ginny adjusts the green satin, `All better,' and smiles as a centimeter tall lumberjack chases a centimeter tall Voldemort across Luna's shoulders, complete with tiny chainsaw noises.

Luna puts on her radish-shaped earrings and butterbeer cork necklace, and tucks her wand behind her ear, `Let's go!' she orders over her shoulder.

Ginny admires the contrast as Luna's bright skirts flutter around her scuffed green jungle boots, black wool socks just peeking over the top of them under pale legs dusted in fine gold hairs.

Ginny got to go first, so she watched, stirring her jam and cream cheese, still not quite the right color, but closer, as Luna entered the room. The whole hall went silent for a moment.

`Wow, that's the fastest nargle infestation I've ever seen,' Luna says, and everyone goes back to talking amongst themselves. Ginny ponders that, and carefully spreads even coats of pink on her toast, carefully ignoring her brothers, Harry, and Hermione, who are staring at her.

`All right, who are you, and what did you do with Ginny?' Fred finally asks.

`I'm Zuuhl, the Gatekeeper. I took her body so that I could free Gowzer the Destroyer and bring about the end of the world as you know it,' Ginny tells him with a straight face, finally picking up her toast and starting to eat it.

Her brothers stare at her in horrified shock, while both Hermione and Harry break out laughing.

`Let me talk to Ginny, please,' Hermione says, laughing so hard she almost can't get the words out.

`There is no Ginny, only Zuuhl,' Ginny answers, taking another bite of toast.

Her attention drifts as the door opens, and Pansy stalks in, her movements sharper and harder than normal. Ginny wonders what pissed her off.

Pansy's gaze sweeps the room, catches sight of Ginny's toast, and a hint of blush colors the tips of her ears before she turns her glare on Millicent Bulstrode. She strides up to the Slytherin table, grabs the bigger girl's collar, and pulls sharply. Millicent, not expecting the attack, doesn't counter, and falls awkwardly off the bench onto her head, `I've told you not to try to get into my things, Bulstrode,' she snaps, placing a booted foot between the girl's shoulder blades when she rolls over to get up, holding her down, `What was _soo_,' she drawls, `Important that it couldn't wait until I got back from the bathroom this morning?'

`Umbridge,' Millicent says, then goes silent.

Pansy turns towards the head table, `And what, Professor Umbridge, is so important that you need to send a student to dig through another student's locked trunk?' she shifts her gaze to Snape, `Isn't that the Head of House's job, if it needs to happen?'

Snape gives her a scowl belied by the twinkle in his eyes, `Five points from Slytherin, for fighting in the Great Hall and unethical behavior,' his gaze hardens as he turns on Umbridge, `Delores. You _will_ explain why I just had to take five points from my own House.'

Ginny smiles. Pansy takes a seat, turning her back on Millicent and taking up her fork.

`What was that?' Ginny asks, as they wait for Harry's party to clear the hallway.

`Millicent tried to get into my trunk. She got into the fake compartment, but not the rest of it,' Pansy says, `And even that pissed me off.'

`I should think.'

Professor McGonagall smiles at them as she sweeps by, then stops and turns back, `You might be interested in what we're doing,' and moves to join Harry's group.

`Come,' Luna says, and starts after them.

`But Luna,' Ginny whines, `You haven't even touched me yet,' following after.

`I at least want a kiss first,' Pansy complains to Ginny in a whisper loud enough for Luna to hear.

`If you don't stop that we'll have to start using Japanese,' Luna tells them.

`Then we'll be snarking on "iku",' Ginny says.

Pansy bites her hand, eyes bulging for a moment, but doesn't laugh, or, possibly worse, whimper. It seems obvious she's tempted, though.

McGonagall opens a door about where their door should be, and leads the group into a well-lit room, about fifteen by twenty meters.

Harry explains to Ginny, `This room provides whatever you need,' she shrugs, `You need a room full of chamberpots, it provides a room full of chamberpots, you need a training hall,' she gestures around. Cho is limbering up with a deeply curved saber, and Hermione and Ron are trying to hold a coherent conversation about the relative merits of a Jian and a broadsword. That isn't working well.

`Luna found it,' Ginny says, `We're working on a project right now,' she turns a brilliant smile on the slightly taller than she used to be girl, `You could help! Could you bring us some snails, mice, and a monkey or something? We're working on vanishing and unvanishing, or we will be tomorrow after breakfast chow.'

`Snails, mice, and a monkey, for Vanishing. I need to practice mine, would it be OK if I join you?'

Ginny catches Luna's eyes, and kicks the question into the big room for her to find. Luna nods.

`That should be fine,' she tells Harry.

`Thanks,' Harry smiles, and Myrtle pulls her misty form off Harry's forehead, and brushes across Ginny's lips.

`You need to ask Luna's permission before you do that, Myrtle,' Ginny tells her.

Myrtle dances a moment, then settles back against Harry.

Harry answers Ginny's look, `No, I don't know what she said, either,' she shakes her head, `We've been working on learning Morse, but even with Cho helping it's been hard.'

`Ah,' Ginny smiles, suddenly, `Bring Cho, too. It might be fun,' she says, suddenly wanting people she isn't involved with, people she isn't, to talk to.

`When?'

`Tomorrow after breakfast.'

`I've got places to be Sunday afternoon,' Harry says.

`Don't worry, we'll have you out by then,' Ginny smiles a smile that makes Harry nervous.

Ginny catches Luna's eye, and Luna points imperiously towards the door with her chin, `Pansy, Ginny, with me,' she orders, and starts towards the door in a flutter of blue skirts covered in happy eyes.

They walk down the hall, then back again, and Luna unlocks the door while Ginny notes the time on both watches.

`We've got almost two months,' Pansy says, once the door is closed behind them and she's checked the numbers again, `Well, a hundred and twenty days, after we take an hour for Ent, until breakfast Sunday, so let's make the best of it.'

Sixty days later the three of them are standing outside a live-fire shoot-house, the cinderblock structure regenerating after the last run-through, as the droid instructor walks them through the after action review, `Three improves?' she asks, folding her arms under her breasts. Ginny, again, wonders why the, normally, anyway, Jamanen is an exception, non-sentient droid are all slender, buxom women, and waits for Luna to complain first.

Luna turns that look on her, the one that says "I'm not going to dog you out, do it yourself," and Ginny sighs, `I called Luna up to breach, but didn't make sure Pansy was on my ass before I OK'd it.'

`I didn't get on Ginny's ass quick enough when Luna pulled out, so I was slow through the door, and got my ass shot off,' Pansy says.

`When Pansy went down, I went in after her, and didn't get turned around fast enough to get the one who apparated in behind me before he could attack,' Luna says.

`Sustains?'

`We killed them all,' Ginny says, `Eventually.'

`The adaptive cloth throws their aim off very well,' Luna says.

`And we've gotten much better at moving in BAM,' Pansy says after a bit of thought. `Still no luck on Segmi?'

`It will stop bullets, but an RPG or slicing hex will cut right through it,' the instructor says, `I think real LA is beyond the pale in this world,' she shrugs, `If you could get a real set from somewhere it should be fine, but we can't grow it here.'

Luna nods, `Right.'

`And three things to do differently.'

`Make sure Pansy's on my ass before I OK a breach.'

`Get on Ginny's ass faster,' Pansy smiles, `Usually that's not such a problem, but.'

Ginny blushes.

Luna smiles, then steadies again, `When I've got the rear, watch the rear,' she pouts prettily, `Again, normally not a problem.'

The other two laugh softly.

`Are you ready to go again?' the instructor asks.

All three nod.

`Same order?' Ginny asks.

`Yep,' Luna says, `This'll get easier once we've got a fourth person,' she slips into place next to Ginny.

Pansy snugs up against her side, watching the rear. Ginny pats Luna's thigh, signaling she's ready. Luna passes it to Ginny, who tries the door. It isn't locked this time. Ginny passes back a "ready" pat, waits for Luna to pass it back from Pansy, then rocks back, flings the door open, and they flow in. Ginny and Luna sweep and clear, Pansy slamming the door against the wall again as she takes up rear security, trusting the other two to have her back.

`On the floor! Now! Drop your wand!' Ginny orders, no one had been in the front half of the room this time, so no one's been shot yet.

There are three `males' and two `females,' target droids, one trussed up as a captive, the other four loose. Three of them obey, dropping their wands and getting on the floor clumsily, but the fourth starts to wave her wand.

Luna shoots her, the ten-gage anti-armor grenade punching easily through her human-normal-toughness torso and striking the back wall before exploding. Even if a human would have survived having most of her left lung blown out her back the concussion wave from behind would have killed her. The droid drops almost silently to the floor, the scattered fluids of her body flowing back to her.

`Status!' Luna orders.

`One up!' Ginny calls.

`Two up!' Luna calls.

`Three up!' Pansy calls from the door, and Ginny moves to zip-tie the captives.

`Room Secure!' Luna calls, covering for Ginny even as she calls it up, `Room secure, one E-KIA, three EPW, one civilian hostage.'

`Better,' the droid instructor says, `But you might want to switch tubes if you're not breaching the room.'

`That's kinda loud,' Luna says, spinning the M10Rs cylinders, and racking out the AAG in the chamber, letting it feed a round of 00 buckshot instead with a fairly quiet *Shish**click**ChaChunk*

The instructor catches the grenade before it can hit her in the face, `Try not to drop these. They don't blow up too often, but.'

`It makes people miserable when they do,' Luna nods, `But I knew you'd catch it, so,' she smiles up at the tall, green skinned autonomous expert system.

She shakes her head, `It's polite to say "Catch" when you do that.'

Thirty days later they roll out the door, all four in parade blacks, without rank, patches, or branch tape, just a nametape over the right breast pocket, "LOVEGOOD," "WEASELY," and "PARKINSON."

The alarm is already set, this time, and it takes Luna less than thirty seconds to set the trip flare. Ginny pulls the other two close, and dives for REM.

Ent is waiting for them, `I've missed you,' she gathers Pansy in for a hug, presses her face against Pansy's bosom, `And they're bigger. That's nice,' she pulls back to look at her again, `You're still really short,' she traces the name on Pansy's parade blacks, "POTTER" on the right and "VIGILANTE" over her left pocket, right at Ent's eye level.

`I'm not that short,' Pansy complains, `And Ginny's gotten most of the tall among us.'

Ent turns, and looks up, then up a little more, `You may be right,' she smiles, `Thanks and sorry for last night,' she tells Ginny.

Ginny opens her arms, and Ent steps up to accept the hug, `It's OK,' Ginny says, `I always wanted to be closer to people,' She picks the girl up, cuddling her close as Ent wraps her legs around Ginny's waist.

`C'mere,' Luna says, and the fuzzy surroundings become a Ravenclaw dorm room, with only a single large canopied bed that Luna's sitting on.

Ginny sits back against the headboard, Ent still wrapped firmly around her, the girl's arms around her neck and head pillowed on her shoulder, and the other two cuddle close from either side.

`What are we going to do?' Ent asks.

`We're going to raid the Slytherin dorms early tomorrow morning,' Luna says, `Capture Draco, execute him, then Floo from the Slytherin dorms and unVanish you and your mother, Floo back, and have Madame Pomphrey heal you.'

`I've been working on my healing, but,' Pansy hugs them, `Even a year's training isn't enough.'

`One thing we're worried about is that one of the standard "cures,"' Ginny forces the word out after a moment's pause, `for a rape victim is to Obliviate the incident. Same for Vanishing Sickness. Your mother passed out, but,' Ginny presses her cheek against the top of Ent's head.

`You can keep them from Obliviating me, and it would do no good to Obliviate me anyway, since all three of you know all about it.'

`But you're a Muggle, so,' Ginny hugs her tighter.

`I don't think so,' Ent shakes her head, `I think I had a couple wild magic incidents, now that I've got yours to compare with, or maybe I'm just mixing up our memories. I couldn't direct my dreams like this until today. Harry's dreams are strange, nice, but strange, all sweet girly sex with her and Cho and Myrtle, their dreams just barely brushing together.'

`That,' Pansy pulls back, and mutters an incantation, drawing symbols in the air, `Yeah, that does explain why your magic was so weak the first few weeks after our dream last night,' she looks them over carefully, then Luna as well, `I'm not sure about the binding depth, but Ginny left a good chunk of her,' Pansy fishes for a word, `Your magical cores merged, and Ginny left a big hunk of hers with you. She's regrown hers, but it looks like yours has formed a new framework, and is filling it in,' another incantation, and two brightly glowing gems are displayed in the air between them.

`Star seeds!' Ent says.

`Not quite, but,' Pansy concentrates, and a smaller, duller gem appears, `False color, and flattened to three dimensions, but if a normal Muggle's core looks like this,' it is a translucent eight-sided shape, the sides flat, not glowing so brightly as to occlude the objects on the far side, ` and Ginny's looks like a normal witch or wizards,' Ginny's core is represented as a twelve-sided shape, the sides bulging slightly, the edges bright, just bright enough that one can't look through it, `and Ent's,' is also twelve-sided, but the sides are pressed in so far they almost touch each other, and the glow isn't quite bright enough to occlude vision except in the center, leaving the edges and the thinner walls between the sides translucent, `Is completely different. The books say that's what the core of someone who's been severely depleted looks like.'

`So I won't just burn off what I got from Ginny and return to being a normal Muggle?'

`I don't think so,' Pansy says, `And you were never a normal Muggle.'

`Thank you,' Ent lets go of Ginny the rest of the way, and tackle-hugs Pansy, mashing their lips together.

Pansy kisses her back, and Ginny closes her eyes, whimpering, hiding her face in her hand.

Luna gathers her into her arms, `It will be OK,' she whispers, `We'll find everyone who hurt her, and make sure they never do it again, not to anyone else. We'll be OK, she'll be OK.'

`But it hurts,' Ginny whimpers, `I know that body like my own, I know her like I know myself, and he hurt her just because he could. I want,' she hugs Luna so tightly she squeaks, `She's such a pretty girl, and she should be fifteen now, should be,' she looks up into blue-green eyes framed by chestnut brown hair as someone pulls her head up by her bangs, and soft lips press to her own. Her mouth opens as an eager tongue brushes over her lips, presses between them, strokes, dream-soft, over her own. Ginny whimpers, pressing into the loving kiss, looks up dazed when Ent breaks it.

`I'm surviving, that's all that matters. If we all come out alive, we win. If they die, that's good, but most important to me is all of us come out alive,' she stares into Ginny's eyes, until Ginny nods, `Good!' she bounces on the bed, suddenly relaxed again, `Now I want to play with Luna's boobies!'

She continues to laugh as the others recover from their various faults.

*Brawp* *Brawp* Ent rubs her face against Luna's bare chest, and sits back on her heels, the soft nightgown she'd greeted them in suddenly shifting into the dark denim she wore the night Ginny met her.

`I guess you need to go,' she says.

`Unfortunately,' Luna rolls off the bed onto her feet, her top, t-shirt and bra all swirling into place at once.

Ginny gives Ent a hug, `Look,' she says, pointing at Luna's top.

Ent smiles, sniffles, `So, I've got two wives now?'

Luna looks down to see that her top does, indeed, say "POTTER" over the right pocket, then answers, `Look at Ginny's.'

Ent and Ginny both check, `But I didn't even take my top off,' Ginny whines.

`I didn't notice that earlier,' Ent says, and pulls Ginny down for another kiss.

Pansy and Luna wrap themselves around the kissing pair, and Ent, with some minor difficulty, twists to kiss them as well.

*Brawp* *Brawp*

The four girls hold each other in silence a while more, then Pansy gives Ent one last kiss, `We'll,' she stops, `You'll see us tomorrow night.'

`Go, so you can come back,' Ent orders softly.

`Yes'm,' Ginny squeezes her, then vanishes.

`Tomorrow,' Luna says, then kisses her, deeply, cupping the small girl's ass while Ent mauls her breasts. She breaks the kiss, smiles, and vanishes as well.

`I miss you,' Pansy says, `Will miss you.'

Ent gives her another hug, steps back, `I'll see you tomorrow.'

`Right,' Pansy nods, eyes glittering, and vanishes, leaving Ent in the empty room.

`What does Draco dream about?' she asks herself aloud.

This time they help a crying Pansy back through the door, and settle in.

Five days later Pansy drags them all to the library, `Help me look, I want a remedy for magical depletion, and if we can find one for a depleted ghost as well, that would be nice for Potter,' she stops, blushes, `Harry.'

`That'll be a bit weird. Does she want a ceremony?' Luna asks.

`Yes.'

`Not really, not a public one, anymore,' Ginny answers at the same time as Pansy, `She'd like one, but doesn't want it to be a hassle.'

`So a HEC ceremony in the Great Hall at dinner chow would do?' Luna asks.

`Who'd we canonize to perform the ceremony?'

`Granger,' Pansy says, `She'd get a kick out of it, I'm sure.

`We'll need at least one more,' Luna says, `But it would be nicest if we could get Angharad, Ron, and Cho as well as Hermione.'

`That might work. Maybe we can ask them Monday at lunch?' Ginny says.

Pansy checks the softly-glowing magcap, wondering if it will work, then runs to join the others at the door. She catches it before it swings fully open, and she helps Luna close it while Ginny notes the time.

Once the door is closed she rushes off, her still not quite shoulder-length hair fluttering over the glittering black half-cape she's wearing instead of her parade blacks' top, and heads for the dungeons with reckless speed.

Ginny's dressed as she was the breakfast before, only the shirt is grey and the jeans are olive drab this time, her braid, now so long it would drag on the floor, bundled up to waist-length.

Luna's in black, slim-cut wool and leather, her hair gathered into Sailor Moon's knee-length Odango, despite an attempt to get her into Princess Leia's commo-headset hairdo to go with "Luke's outfit." 

Luna heads straight for the Great Hall, and Ginny for Gryffindor tower.

Once again, the Great Hall goes silent when she enters, and she scans over the room, tasting surface thoughts whenever someone meets her eyes. Dumbledore is thinking about candy, and Snape is worried about Angharad. His eyes sharpen and a nicely formed brick wall appears in his mind almost instantly, and Luna prods one of the monkeys in her big room to hassle him. She's proud of her big room, brightly lit with a wide blue sky, a few puffy clouds, clear blue water she copied from a travel brochure about Hawai'i, boomslangs, crabs, bugs, mice, monkeys, and a Gojirasaurus all living on the white-beached island. The trees still move around randomly, but at least now they pull up their roots and walk instead of just appearing in different places.

The monkey throws brightly-glowing slimy splattery stuff at him, and he smiles, pineapple-smelling goo dripping from his hair. He's suddenly replaced by a fourteen year old girl, the black hair washed and tied back, a wide smile on her clean face, `Very nice, Luna, very nice indeed,' and she's gone.

Luna blinks, shifts her gaze onward. Hermione is worried about Ginny. Harry's worried about Luna, mostly, but Ginny as well, and thinks she's taller. Luna makes a note to check that.

Conversation resumes as she walks to the Ravenclaw table and sits down.

Pansy makes it in next, and stalks over to the Slytherin table again. She's carrying something in her left hand, and uses her right to pull back Millicent's collar, `Don't leave me presents,' she says, and drops the almost blood-warm chocolate frog down the back of Millicent's shirt. Millicent screams, and jumps up, and actually shudders as the candy squirms around against her back. Pansy takes a seat, and grabs up a napkin to wipe off her hand.

Millicent's seated again by the time Ginny drags in, plopping down next to Hermione.

Cho gets up with Luna, and the Trio joins Ginny when she leaves. Pansy glares at Millicent before getting up and leaving herself.

Luna has the door open, and the time written on her hand. Ginny notes that, and the current times, when she arrives, and Pansy sweeps into the BTC in front of them.

Once the door was locked again, she turns to Harry, `You left the mice and monkey outside somewhere?'

`In the room down the hall,' Harry nods, `Ginny said we'd have lots more time in here than out there, so,' she shrugs, `This way we don't have to worry about feeding the mice or the monkey for a couple days while we play with the snails.'

`Good,' Pansy nods.

`Now, Pansy, Hermione, Ginny, and Cho,' Luna says firmly, `Form up over there,' she waves sort of vaguely at a round, flat teleport pad.

The four girls look at each other, and two of them shrug. Hermione and Cho blink, but stand in line at single-arm intervals. Ginny and Pansy straighten into attention after getting their interval, but Hermione and Cho just stand there. Despite that, it's pretty obvious that Luna's two girls have grown by inches, well, Ginny by inches and Pansy by almost an inch.

`OK, fall out,' Luna tells them, turns to the other two, `Angharad, Ron, bring the snails,' she turns back to the pad, `Ginny, get the books.'

Ginny's got the books summoned and open by the time Ron and Harry set down the snails, so she starts. The snail . . . resists . . . being Vanished much more than a potion, which resists more than a book, which is harder than a nail. When she goes to unVanish it, `That's odd,' she says, `It's much easier to get back.'

Pansy and Luna both try, the snails slowly fading out, then coming back with an almost audible *pop*.

After a couple hours the entire group can Vanish and unVanish their snails, and Luna shakes tired hands, `OK, time for a little PT to get our heads back together,' she Vanishes her snail, `Vanish your snails so they won't wander off.'

`Do they get full training issue, or just PTs?' Pansy asks after Vanishing her snail.

`Angharad?' Luna asks.

Angharad looks her in the eye, and Luna lets herself skim her surface thoughts, then just a tiny bit deeper, warmed by her trust, affection . . . she closes her eyes.

`Sorry, Harry,' Luna shakes her head, `Didn't mean to go that deep.'

`It is fine, Luna. I do not think I brushed anything I should not have,' Harry says, shaking his head, `I want my contractions back, I do believe.'

`With a light meld like that, it should fade quickly. You should work on your big room, however. Your mind is not entirely your own.'

`At 127:1, if we stay until dinner,' Harry shrugs, `That should give us enough time to go through Basic, and learn this Vanishing. Full Initial Training Issue, please.'

Hermione nods, and the rest of the group is lost.

`How did you manage this?' she asks as Luna leads the way towards the main complex.

`I needed to be stronger, a lot stronger, so I was daydreaming about how I could do it when I came across the door with keys in all six locks. Inside I found this, so I pocketed the keys and started training. It wasn't as,' she stops talking a moment, `Time didn't seem to run as fast in here before I brought Ginny and Pansy with me Friday afternoon.'

`Oh, really?' Ginny asks, `I'll write down how many people we have in here,' she pulls out her notebook and scribbles it in.

Hermione nods, `I was thinking about that over breakfast -- you squeeze olives, you get oil; the oil is intrinsic to the olive. You compress air, you get heat, because the heat is intrinsic to matter. You squeeze light, and you lose time, it escapes, and your near-lightspeed reference frame time dilates. If you squeeze time, maybe you get magic?'

Luna grins, suddenly, `So the more time you squeeze, the more magic you extract, the more you can use, so the more people we put into this high-energy construct, the more time is squeezed for its magic,' she smiles, `if that is the case, we may be able to put you through a full BCT class before dinner in the Great Hall.'

Angharad closes her eyes, `I don't think,' she pauses, `I fear that Britain isn't a good place for Darkies.'

`It probably isn't. That's why we've got VIGILANTE as the branch tape on our parade blacks.'

`That's probably the best we'd get called,' Angharad nods, `"Defend yourself first of all, then your buddies, your children, and your Nation,"' she quotes, unsure if the memory is her own or Luna's.

`"For you can only protect so long as you live, the buddy who's hurt is a drag, your buddies' children are as your own, and your Nation can only protect you while it lives,"' Pansy finishes the quote.

Ron and Cho look a little worried.

`From the Sailor Moon TXD movie, when Ranma's talking to Lee before the third assault,' Hermione tells them.

The other two are neither enlightened nor reassured.

Six hours later they all head back, well, the new four drag back, to the teleport pad, and unVanish their snails. It takes Ron seven tries before he gets his back, and he pouts about it for several minutes, until not even Luna can get back anyone else's snail on the first try.

They trail off to bed, do personal hygiene, and the new four just look at the bunks they had finally gotten tight.

Pansy approaches Harry as she is staring at her bunk, unwilling to climb into it, and holds out the magcap, `This might help Myrtle.'

`What is it?' Harry takes it, the glassy material of it warm in her hands.

`A magcap, magical capacitor. It lets you save a bunch of magic, and release it, either all at once or over time. Since Myrtle's drained herself,' she shrugs, `I'm not sure where ghosts get their energy, but this may help.'

`Myrtle?' Harry asks.

Myrtle slips down, hovers near it, then brushes it lightly. There's a loud *CRACK* as the magcap discharges, and Myrtle jerks back, `Oww,' she says, in a little tiny voice.

`I guess it worked,' Pansy says, smiling. She picks up the now-dark magcap, and starts feeding energy into it again.

Myrtle flies up, and impossibly tiny hands press against Pansy's nose, followed by an impossibly tiny kiss, `Thank you.'

Pansy pulls back to see a slender, almost emaciated form and hollow, half-starved face smile back at her, `You're welcome.'

A P.O.E.E. week later, they can see just how much work the other three have put in, but aren't sure they want to lose a hundred and twelve days of their lives to training.

All seven of them can Vanish a snail, unVanish one, unVanish one that one of the others Vanished, and everyone, except Ron, who can't work with Luna's wand, can use anyone's wand to unVanish a snail anyone Vanished, so that evening during the new four's Personal Time they are all at the door, and open it.

Ginny darts over, notes the times, and the other six dash semi-tactically down the hall to the empty classroom.

Mice acquired, they dash back, and Luna locks the door behind them, `Ginny?'

`Twenty-four minutes,' Ginny says, `They'll be through Basic by dinner time.'

Ron groans.

Cho walks over to Pansy, pokes at her arm, `Am I going to be that,' she frowns, `Muscly?'

`Probably,' Harry says, `But I think it would look good on you.'

`You like butch girls and plump girls and tiny girls and tall girls,' Cho rounds on Harry, `Are their any types of girls you don't like?'

Harry pauses to think, `I prefer if they've got a bit of neck, or they remind me too much of Uncle Vernon, but if they're skinny and have too much neck they remind me of Aunt Petunia. Other than that, girls are pretty.'

`Even Umbridge?'

`Judging by what I Walked in on,' Luna says, `Yes.'

Cho rounds on Luna, `What?'

`It was before he became a girl again, and I was dreamwalking, and he was having quite an angry wank to the thought of Umbridge on her back on the Defense class teacher's desk, with her fat little hands wrapped around her knees as he fucked her. I was impressed by the level of detail and the way he had her breasts sloshing around most realistically, until I realized her dream had brushed into his fantasy, and then I left as quick as I could.'

Harry started the explanation red, and finished it white, `Oh no,' she whimpers, and drops to the ground, tucking her head between her knees. Myrtle, now less skinny and almost as tall as Harry's hand is long, cuddles against her neck.

Cho looks nearly as horrified, and drops to her knees to cuddle Harry also, `That was,' she stops, `Only a little over a month ago,' she whimpers into Harry's neck, `If she is, and it's yours, we're going to have to try and get custody,' she says, `I sure wouldn't want any child to grow up in that woman's care.'

`But maybe a child would help get her head on straight, too,' Harry mutters.

`But would you want to be the child she experiments on? We should get her a monkey or something that's a little sturdier than a child,' Myrtle says, stroking Harry's neck with her hands.

`And there's only anecdotal evidence that women over forty who look like they've never gotten laid in their lives have more unpartnered pregnancies.'

`Tell that to my Aunt Jun, who was thirty-five, married to a nice Chinese man, and had a really pretty black baby girl, with only "I was dreaming, and this really pretty black woman started going down on me, and was thinking in my dream `a baby this woman's color, with a narrower nose, a bit of tilt her eyes, those pale gold eyes we sometimes get in my family,'" to explain it. A lot of spellwork and several truthers were used, but that's all they got. We never did find out who Jing's other mother is, but she almost came to live with us when she was born, oh, she's almost nine now. We'll be out of here by the time she makes it to Hogwarts, but her magic's really strong.'

`That's not very reassuring,' Harry mutters.

`Oh, shut up,' Cho pushes her back onto the grass and kisses her soundly. The rest take that a cue that everything will be fine and they should leave.

They drag in just before lights out. No one mentions the careful way they change into their PTs for the night.

A few weeks later, Ron, still not used to the rotation at the chow hall, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, Korean, and Chow Hall Standard (which is like American Diner, but less classy) groans, `Bulgogi again?'

Harry pokes it with her chopsticks, `Gegogi, I think.'

`Oh,' Ron picks up a bit, eats it, asks, `What's the difference?'

`If you don't know,' Hermione looks a little green, but eats it anyway, `You probably don't want to. Be comforted by the thought that this is the closest it's ever come to a real animal, and leave it at that.'

`What do you mean?'

`The food's created the same way the weapons are. It's real, but magically constructed,' Ginny tells her brother.

Once he's finished, she looks at her girls, twitches her eyes at Ron. Luna shakes her head. Pansy sees Luna, and shakes her head too, but she's trying not to laugh. Decided, Ginny turns to her brother, `Do you want to know what gegogi is?'

`No, but you'll tell me anyway,' Ron folds his hands on the table in anticipation.

`Yep. Bulgogi is cow meat, right?'

Ron nods.

`Gegogi is dog meat.'

`Oh.'

After a few minutes a faint muttering because intelligible, `Closest to a real animal. This is the closest it's gotten to a real animal.'

Ginny doesn't stop laughing for several minutes, and breaks again whenever she looks at her brother for hours.

Once everyone, even Ron, is competent with mice they are taken back out, and the monkey is brought in. This goes much slower, partly because the monkey is harder to work with, but mostly because there is only one monkey, so they have to take turns.

The new four have started rifle training once everyone except, again, Ron can unVanish it whoever Vanished it, and whoever's wand they're using.

With malice aforethought, Ginny volunteers Ron for the next stage, `Since he _obviously_ isn't working hard enough,' she snarks, `We should motivate him.'

`Right!' Hermione says, then `How?'

`He gets to take the monkey's place until he can unVanish the poor thing,' Pansy says, guessing Ginny's ploy.

`Sounds good to me,' Harry says, and Vanishes Ron with only a few seconds struggle. The *POP* when he is unVanished is as loud as for an apparition.

`What? Stop--' Ron manages before Luna Vanishes him, with less struggle but more sweat.

`I kinda like him this way,' she says, then unVanishes him with a *POP*.

`That's horrible,' Hermione says, then frowns as she Vanishes him. He's not fighting at all, and Vanishes nearly instantly. *POP*

`Ronald Weasely,' Hermione complains at him, `You need to work harder than that if you're being a training aid.'

`What? It's easier when the subject's tired,' Ron says.

`Yeah, but it shouldn't be _too_ easy, or it's not good practice. Fight, or I'll be forced to look up something horrible to do to you.'

Ron screams and moans half-heartedly, but it takes Hermione several seconds to Vanish him the second time.

`Any advice?' Ginny asks, when it's finally her turn.

`Don't have sex on the teleport pad,' Cho tells her, breathing hard, since she spent most of an hour working with the monkey before they shifted to Ron, and he put up a good fight for her.

`Oh, we learned that one a month ago,' Ginny answers, pretends that her ears aren't a delicate coral pink, no, not the right shade either, she's checked, and Vanishes her laughing brother. She leaves him Vanished for several minutes, then *POP*.

`That's kinda odd,' Ron says, `I keep thinking that when I'm Vanished no time at all passes, but I can see something out there, like a,' he pauses, `a,' he pauses again, `those things in a muggle museum, with the cavemen-'

`A diorama?' Hermione asks.

`Yeah, it's kinda blurry, and it seems to be moving, but so slowly.'

`You're seeing people's dreams,' Ginny says, `That's why we're doing this,' she looks down, `Someone was Vanished, and she was Pansy's, and we need to get her back.'

Ron blinks in shock, `How can I help?'

After the new four graduate from Basic they find they have an unanticipated task -- they need to find the monkey.

Ron's attempt, `Accio Monkey!' produced, of course, No Monkey.

`Find Angharad,' Luna orders the group, `Myrtle should be with her,' she waves off towards the woods, `And get them to help look for the monkey. I'm going to take the northern quarter of the compound, Pansy, take south, Ginny, east, and the rest of you take the west.'

The west side ends at the invisible wall the door is mounted in, but no one's reached the ends of the BTC in the other three directions. Appropriately miffed about the slight on their abilities, two of the new graduates start looking for the monkey and Cho starts looking for Harry and Myrtle.

Luna's having a grand time tramping through the woods when someone puts up a white `recall' flare.

She tramps back, and finds out why Ron's Monkey Summoning did not work. Angharad had done . . . something to the monkey, and it wasn't a monkey anymore.

`What is that?' she asks.

`Is everyone here yet?' Harry asks.

`We are now,' Pansy answers from behind them.

`Now, you were there for the Umbridge scare,' Everyone nods, and Myrtle, now, rather disturbingly, hobbit-sized but still skinny, cuddles up to her neck, `So we figured we'd give her a pet, but it had to be a rather smart and really tough pet, so,' she strokes the demon-platypus in her lap's horns, `Hexy is a mascot for some muggle project-'

`Darwin!' Luna crows, `I saw it online!' she goes silent, `Then the guy started dreaming about porn sites, and stealing credit card numbers to get on them, so I Walked out.'

`Right. So we thought about using real demon DNA or summoning a demon to merge with the poor monkey, then decided that such a creature would need far more love than Umbridge was likely to give it,' a chorus of agreement makes her pause a moment, `But we put in a DW Form 1896,' "Request for Sample for Bio-Research," `And actually got a Mogwai tissue sample as well as a platypus one. After some careful experiments we spliced them, and have a sweet, affectionate little devil-platypus who doesn't mutate if she eats after midnight, isn't vulnerable to sunlight, and doesn't have hordes of babies if she gets wet.'

`What does trigger mutation?' Luna asks.

`Trauma. Major trauma, broken bones and damaged organs type trauma. Even if she mutates, she should still retain her current personality, and will try to find her parents,' Myrtle says, `that's us. If that Umbridge person hurts her that badly, I'll throw _her_ in the lake.'

`And her reproductive trigger?'

`A bottle of Sake, followed by a bottle of ink, and then for the next hour or so she'll bud off if exposed to motor oil or petroleum-based lamp oil.'

`Seems safe enough. How sure are you of those triggers?'

`As sure as I can be without trying them for real. Sake and oil, sake and ink, sake and sake, ink and oil, ink and ink, and ink and sake didn't do anything, and she wouldn't drink the oil, so we didn't test that,' Harry says, continuing to stroke the little creature's horns as it purrs.

`But she's cute, smart, tough, has no fur to shed, and adores people. I don't want to give her up, but do you think Umbridge would take care of her?'

Hermione rubs the tiny thing's lighter belly, `If she doesn't she's got something very wrong with her.'

`We're getting her a pet because she might have something very wrong with her,' Cho says gently.

`So?' Harry asks.

`Do you have a tissue sample?' Luna asks, `I think one would be very good for my father.'

Angharad blinks at her, `I hadn't thought of that. Anyone else? Would Severus like one?'

`Maybe,' Ginny says, as the cute little thing blinks outsized blue eyes at her, `Yeah, I want one, but I think my mom would have to take care of it, but I've not got a pet, so . . . Hagrid will want one.'

`So, little Hexy, do you think Ginny, Luna's dad, and Hagrid would take care of baby Hexies?'

She twists, looks up at Ginny, Luna, and excitedly chases the Gojirasaurus, all four little webbed hands used to run as fast as she can after it, then hold on as she climbs its plated back until she perches on the tall suitmation monster's head and claps happily.

`Meet 'Agrid,' she says, `'Arry keep if no good,' she rubs her beak with one hand, `'Arry get baby 'Exy,' she nods firmly, decided.

Harry looks up at Cho and Myrtle, who both nod.

Sake, ink, lamp oil, and an eyedropper are quickly secured, and the Hexy downs the first bottle with a scowl, `Ick,' then the ink, `Ick,' then she sways on her feet, and falls down on her rump, `feel funny.'

Harry fills the dropper with oil, and carefully drops a single drop on the Hexy's back. With magical speed, a lump forms under her skin, then grows, and grows a little more, and her skin gets thinner and more translucent as the lump grows, becoming round, starts to sag a little, then the baby Hexy inside twitches, shifts, and her skin splits, spilling the baby to roll out onto her back even as Hexy's skin heals up again.

`'Ungry. Donuts. Jelly donuts,' Hexy says. They are quickly proffered, and Hexy eats half a dozen.

`Ready?' Harry asks. `Baby?'

Harry sets the dropper down and turns the little creature to look. Cho and Myrtle are cuddling the baby and cooing at it.

`She's got your eyes,' Cho says.

Harry leans in to see that the tiny creature has eyes even greener than hers, and smiles. She digs in the box, and hands the baby a jelly donut, `What's her name?'

Cho and Myrtle glance at each other before turning back to watch the baby eat the last of the donut, leaving her shiny nut brown skin, darker brown bill, and tiny red horns almost as covered in powdered sugar as the four tiny webbed hands she's trying to lick clean.

`Ready,' Hexy says.

Harry picks up the dropper and lets another droplet fall on her back.

Hexy and the babies devour two dozen jelly donuts, sixteen pieces of chow-hall magoro sushi, and the babies each drink three glasses of milk.

The babies all have different eye colors, but are otherwise, by the end of dinner chow, visually identical to their mother. Black-eyed Susan is going to Hagrid, or Cho, if Hagrid proves to be "no good." Golden-eyed Heliconia is Luna's, and Ginny's purple-eyed pest is Hotaru. Myrtle and Cho can't decide on a name, so Angharad decides to go with the theme, and names the green-eyed one Makoto.

They decide to put off going to chow another day, so it is the next morning that they open the door. Ginny notes the times, and they close the door.

Luna looks over her little group, pets the little creature flopped over her shoulder, and smiles.

Angharad and Cho have dressed alike, in loose-fitted blue jeans and sleeveless black tops. Angharad's waist-length hair, slightly wavy, pulled back and tied with a band at the base of her shoulderblades, and Cho's slightly longer hair is gathered into a single tail dangling from the upper left side of her head. Myrtle has, with help from Pansy, convinced the swirling mist she had been wearing to settle into a DS9 medical branch uniform, complete with a scattering of darker spots trailing down the sides of her face from her temples to her feet. It looks really cute, even if no one can decide if she's trying for Ezri or Jadzia.

Makoto is sitting on Cho's shoulder, braced with a gentle hand on her ear. Susan and Hexy sit on either of Harry's shoulders.

Hermione was tempted to show up in stripped woodland BDUs, but Luna prefers what she decided to wear instead. Her bushy brown hair is the same length as Pansy's, but taper-cut, and a brilliant sea green, to go with the wool WWII-era U.S. Navy sailor's uniform.

Ron. They got him _into_ the W.A.V.E.'s uniform, but not out the door in it, but, after much cajoling, did get him to wear the traditional Irish kilt. Luna shakes her head, disappointed.

Pansy is in black again, the loose black V.C. uniform and jungle boots instantly recognisable to a Muggle, but just "foreign" to Wizarding Britain.

Ginny's in Luna's eyeball skirt, which is much shorter on her, and a red top that does awful things to her complexion, her hair done in a multitude of long, slender braids she's been ordered not to take out for at least a week, Hotaru on her shoulder.

Luna, for her own amusement, is once more dressed as "Queen Serenity, Dark Jedi," this time complete with light saber, slicing and stunning charms powered off a magcap, with most of the actual enchantment effort put into containing the spells to the saber's "beam" and making it look and sound right. The part that should have been hardest, making it not show up as anything more than a funny-looking bit of worked aluminum when it was inactive, was easiest and most frustrating. Angharad borrowed it for a day, and brought it back done. Ginny did the persona lock, but at least Luna got to watch. She grabs the weapon, feels the activation button, and smiles at the thought.

Harry, Cho, and Myrtle gather up the snails and mice to take them back to Professor McGonagall's classroom. Ginny tucks left her arm through Luna's right, and lets the shorter girl lead her towards the Great Hall, Hotaru and Heliconia leaning out to brush their bills together for a moment before facing front again.

Hermione smirks, poses, then struts off towards dinner, even though it feels much more like breakfast to her.

Ron tugs at his slightly more than shoulder-length hair, which is done up in a frightful array of feathers, rocks, and braids that Ginny says looks `Irish.' Ron's afraid Ginny's just messing with him again.

Either way, Ron still agreed to go to dinner.

Pansy thinks about Luna's new light saber, and smiles as she drifts down the hall, thinking about carving blonde boys into little pink and red chunks.

`'Agrid good,' Hexy says, once she's looked into the big man's eyes, so Harry walks up to the head table, `Professor,' she says, `This is Susan.'

Harry holds out her right arm, and the little devil-platypus walks down it on her rear hands, front set held out for balance like a tightrope walker. She stops on Harry's palm, and bows.

`Merlin's painted beard!' Hagrid says gruffly, `What is she?'

`She's a Hexy. They're slightly related to Mogwai, but can go out in the sun, eat after midnight, and don't bud new ones when you get them wet,' she brings her hand down close to the table, and Susan hops off, walking over to run her bill over Hagrid's hand before climbing up his arm and starting to go through his pockets, `They're sturdy, easy to care for, and very friendly.'

She and Hexy watch for a moment until they're sure Susan and Hagrid are going to get along, then Harry takes Hexy off her shoulder and looks her in the eye, "Be sure to run away if she's too mean, OK? I don't want you hurt."

"Wotcher, Harry," Hexy smiles at her.

She turns to Umbridge, `Professor,' she starts, `One thing I've noticed is that Hufflepuffs need friends worse than anyone. They get mean and cranky and vicious when they don't have any friends, so,' she holds Hexy out on the palms of her side-by-side hands.

`'Ello Delores,' Hexy says, bowing, `Be my friend, please.'

Umbridge's toad-like little mouth thins, stretches, and turns down at the corners, a few lonely tears drip from the corners of her priggish little eyes, and she holds out both of her fat little hands, `Please?'

Hexy runs over, a quick dive off Harry's hands to the table, front hands, back hands, then is gathered into Umbridge's battleship-prow bosom. Hexy feels her over quickly with her bill, then nuzzles up under her neck, turns one blue eye on Harry, "She'll be OK now. I'll keep her safe."

Harry nods, and returns to her seat. Makoto peeks out of Cho's hair, and gives her a thumbs up.

Towards the end of dinner Harry catches Luna's eye, and shoves a question out into her big room, an invisible floor surrounded by stars, "Hagrid, Severus, and McGonagall?"

A monkey throws the answer back, glowing letters splashed upon the beach, "If you can get them." A wave washes the words away, and the monkey throws more glowing goo, "Want me to try working McGonagall?"

"That'd be good, I think," Harry answers, still not happy with her flanged voice effect, but liking it better than using her unmodified voice.

Luna nods, and looks back down to her dessert.

Harry watches for Severus until he looks up, playing with the font and material of her message, "Bring Hagrid and meet up with us in the hallway outside the room of requirements."

The fiery letters are freezing slowly into ice, hissing and popping as the fire is consumed, when Severus finally meets Harry's gaze. His eyes widen, and he nods. Harry lets the words melt into nothing, the remaining flames surging for a moment, then dying. A tiny smile twitches Severus's lips, then he looks down.

Pansy trips Draco when he gets up, `Oh, I'm sorry,' she says, and steps on his thigh as she grabs his hand and tries to pull him to his feet. He stretches, but not very far, so Pansy tugs a little harder, `Stop sticking to the floor,' she tells him.

`Ow,' he whines when she gives him another tug, `You're stepping on my leg.' 

`Oh!' she steps off, and yanks him to his feet with a great, two-handed tug that leaves him staggering into the Hufflepuff table, where he lands in someone's plate of chocolate cake, `Sorry,' she tosses at him, then leans in close to the girl who's plate was ruined, `I most sincerely apologize for ruining your cake,' she smiles, `Let me know if there is _anything_ I can do to make it up to you,' and leans in closer to the rather plump little redhead.

The girl blushes, `OK,' she manages after a little while of staring, entranced, into Pansy's brown eyes.

`Good,' Pansy leans forward, and kisses her softly, lips closed, `Not _quite_ anything,' she pulls back and smiles almost regretfully, `but pretty close, OK?'

The girl's eyes go wide, and she nods, `Mabel,' she gasps out, `My name's Mabel Lister.'

`Pansy Parkinson,' Pansy leans back, and sweeps from the room, her loose black cotton shirt and pants fluttering around her slim form.

Luna stands, and walks around the Hufflepuff table, gently wraps her fingers in Mabel's hair, and pulls her around to look at her, leans close, `Be careful,' she says softly, and louder, `It's like a second-hand kiss,' before leaning down and kissing the girl, starting out chaste and, almost, coy, but deepening as Mabel's lips part under hers. It's nearly a minute later that she breaks the kiss, `Redheads are just so hot, don't you think?' she asks the girl.

Mabel, breathless, can only nod.

Luna drops a quick kiss on her forehead, and sweeps from the room.

Umbridge, Hexy's tiny form cuddled up under her chin where her neck should be, thinks about protesting somehow, but the glowing smile on the little Hufflepuff's face for once doesn't inspire jealous rage, and she lets wispy might-have-beens flutter as she pets Hexy's soft dry back.

McGonagall sweeps from the room.

Hermione picks at her cake, disappointed by the lack of comment about her hair, and notices that the rest of them have already left.

`What was up with that?' Lavender leans close.

Parvati grabs her cup when gets up from Lavender's other side, and brackets Hermione, `Yeah,' she leans in, brushes pale-brown fingers through Hermione's hair, `Mabel's almost recovered, and looking very sexy--'

Hermione's eyes dart to Parvati's smile.

`Harry and Cho suddenly have so much glorious black hair, and you look so,' she pauses, looks to Lavender.

`Glorious,' Lavender supplies, `In blue. It makes your skin look so pale, and your hair,' seeing that Parvati's fingers are still playing with Hermione's hair, Lavender slips hers into the blue-green mass, `Is so soft and lovely. Like cotton candy, only not sticky,' she brushes her face against it, `I want to taste it.'

`Did you do all of your hair?' Parvati whispers breathily, just loud enough for Hermione and Lavender to hear.

`It was going to be temporary, so, no,' Hermione blushes, `Why, did you want to see?'

Lavender and Parvati share a glance, then look back to Hermione and nod.

Hermione contemplates the two for a moment, then draws her wand out the collar of her sailor shirt, barely noticing that it is warm before she notes the . . . interesting . . . looks on the two girl's faces, `May I?' she asks.

They nod.

Hermione contemplates the pale, voluptuous blonde in front of her, and thinks a moment, then starts mumbling the incantation, drawing glowing characters in the air with the tip of her wand. She gestures Lavender to turn with her left hand, then pulls her head down, and draws the tip of her wand up the back of Lavender's neck, making her shiver even as the short hairs there shade to a deep pink, then along the part in her hair, the roots stay a little darker as the color spreads silently down to the tip of each strand, down her face, then down the front of her torso to press her skirt against her all the way until the tip of the wand touches the bench.

`Now, to get full coverage, it would be easier if you were nude, since the effect only spreads a little way, so the hair on your hands and feet is still blonde, but,' Hermione smiles, `You did say something about cotton candy, so.'

`It's lovely,' Parvati gushes, grabbing a handfull of Lavender's hair and pulling it close to nibble, `It still tastes the same.'

`It'll keep growing in that color until you change it,' Hermione says.

`Do me,' Parvati says, shifting on the bench to face Hermione, `Please?' she bows her head, long black hair trailing forward over her shoulders.

`Color?'

`You chose a good one for Lav, so choose one for me?'

Hermione nods, and starts mumbling again.

The teachers have all left by the time she finishes, so no one complains when Lavender leans over her lap, wraps both hands in Parvati's now long, dark lavender hair, and snogs her soundly.

Well, after both of them are in her lap, and one of them wraps an arm around her, much too close to the innoticible .45s on her shoulders, `Um, off, please?' she asks, `I've got some studying to do with Harry and Ron.'

The two girls let go of each other reluctantly, slide off Hermione's lap, and stand behind her as she gets up herself.

`Thank you,' Parvati says.

`I think you'd have more fun with us than Ron and Harry,' Lavender says, `Even if she's gotten all dishy,' she shrugs, `but have fun,' and with a glance at Parvati for timing the two lean in and kiss her gently.

Before that moment, Hermione would have said it was impossible to kiss two girls at the same time.

Parvati giggles, grabs Lavender, and rushes off, leaving Hermione standing, dazed, gently brushing her lips with her fingers. 

Everyone is waiting by the time she gets there, so it's only a matter of Ginny noting the time and Luna opening the door before they are all troop inside.

`My goodness,' McGonagall looks around, `The detail! The energy use,' she turns in place, `it must age you a day for every hour you're in here.'

`With only seven of us it was over twelve days an hour,' Luna tells her, `With you three it should be even more.'

`You say that like living a year in a day is a good thing,' Severus says.

`When it needs to be done, it is,' Hermione shrugs, `And we were only in here since breakfast today,' she draws her wand, and Vanishes Ron, `We've been working on Vanishing a lot, but different people vanish differently, and we've only had each other to practice on.'

Cho sighs, and unVanishes Ron *POP*.

Hagrid laughs, `Wow! Most adult wizards couldna manage that!' He pulls Susan out of one of his pockets, and a hedgehog from another, `Don't let the hedgehog get away, Susan,' he tells the Hexy.

She nods, takes the hedgehog, which is half as big as she is, `Gocha,' she says, then works her bill after forcing the word out.

`My turn!' Hagrid declares.

Harry nods, and, with surprisingly little effort, Vanishes him. *POP* `It isn't much practice if you help me Vanish you,' she complains, `Work with us here.'

`Oh. Sorry Harry.'

`You won't have such an easy time of it with me,' Severus says.

Harry smiles, lifts her wand, and Pansy Vanishes him from behind. It takes nearly fifteen seconds of fighting, and she's sweating by the time she finishes. Luna and Ginny share a glance, then start trying to work together to unVanish him. They think they managed to co-ordinate their work on the monkey, but by the time they started unVanishing their monkey was less than a second's work. They feel first for each other, then the strangeness of the Vanished Professor, then . . . *POP*

`That was odd,' Severus says, `I almost felt like myself again.'

`The Vanished are at the edge of the dreamworld,' Luna says, `So your heart's desire may seem closer while you're,' she shrugs.

It takes several weeks before they can Vanish the three teachers, and only Luna can unVanish all three of them by herself.

A lot of time is spent on other magics, and it is only after Severus's demonstration of an anti-magic field that Hermione finally snaps, `What the fuck is Dark about that!' she demands, `It uses the caster's own strength, doesn't hurt anyone, and is a _damned_ effective defense against low to middling level wizards! What the fuck!'

`Dunno,' Susan says, cuddling the hedgehog, who's gotten used to being used as a somewhat prickly Hexy toy.

`What do you think the normal hench-wizards and Aurorers are? If you've got a strong enough AMF, drawing off a large enough area for a long enough time, you could suppress even the strongest wizards. Theoretically you could build an AMF large enough to cover the entire Earth, and use the free magic of the entire solar system to power it,' Severus shrugs, `And that would put those purebloods out so badly. So it's a Dark spell.'

Harry suddenly smirks sadly, `And so is the controlled version of what happened to us,' she laughs, `Because no witch would stay female if she could be a wizard, and . . . ' she shakes her head, laughing sadly, tears dripping down her face.

`We could just shoot 'em,' Ron starts, `Once we've got Voldemort, just whack the Ministry and blow this whole thing open to the muggles . . . ' he trails off, realizing the problems even as he makes the proposal.

`Who'd promptly try to kill us or experiment on us, depending on which group of nutjob muggles gets us first. If we just whack Fudge someone worse will almost certainly take his place. We could mind-rape him, but,' most of the group shudders at Hermione's words, `Exactly. The one thing Volde's right about is that the current system is broken. He's a nutjob,' Ginny nods firmly, `but unfortunately that doesn't mean the status quo is all that much better.'

`Mind-rape?' McGonagall asks.

`Do you want a definition or,' Luna looks her in the eyes, and brushes her surface thoughts, "A demonstration? You wouldn't notice until you find yourself remembering the shape formed by your mother's spreading blood after she blew herself up, the pain and terror as Draco Malfoy rapes you for being Pansy's girl, the simmering rage every time you lay eyes on the little git, the way your heart lifts when you see Ginny's golden eyes. And I'd remember the fight I had with my mother, when she said she wouldn't let my muggle girl live in her house, the dull ache every time I remember her mother showing me the telegram. No, this is just your surface thoughts, what you, yourself, bring up for me to see, it should fade, like a dream, as soon as you look away--"

Minerva snaps her head down, closes her eyes, crying. She whimpers, remembering that intolerable closeness, even as the details, mercifully, fade.

`Persona contamination, that's the official term. It's normally only considered a risk for dreamwalkers, but Legilimency has protective magics layered on it that FM457 doesn't cover, and I haven't been able to find described elsewhere. I think there's something wrong with them, since all of the Legilimens I've met are damaged,' she turns a curious look on Severus, `When did you start learning Legilimency?'

A few more weeks of practice, to the point where even Ron can unVanish all three teachers at once, everyone has a firm grasp on field and shield magics, and a grounding in barrier magics, pass before it is time for the teachers to leave and prepare for their classes Monday morning.

Ginny notes the times, and looks up at Minerva, `Professor, could you have Madame Pomphrey come by at nine? Pansy's been learning a lot of healing magic on her own, but it would be nice if she had someone to teach her for a while.'

`I'll ask,' Minerva says, `Nine o'clock?'

`Yes, please.'

The droids come out of hiding now that the teachers have left, and they spend several weeks on seven-man tactical work.

They find they have fifteen minutes when they open the door, so new calculations are done, and they duck back inside for another eight days.

Madame Pomphrey is waiting when they open the door, so Ginny notes the times while the others talk her into the BTC.

She closes the door behind her, and Luna locks it, even though Ginny and Pansy both have keys now.

Madame Pomphrey is listening intently to Pansy, then nods, lays a hand on the slightly shorter girl's shoulder.

A week later Luna walks up to them, `So, are you good for trauma yet?'

`No,' Pansy says.

`I think so,' Madame Pomphrey says.

`Good, 'cause I think this will hurt,' Luna draws her light saber left handed, lights the red blade with a malignant *snap-hiss*.

Pansy's stares, scared beyond reason, as Luna slashes it down across the middle of her right forearm with an intimidating hum. She shuts off the light saber and returns it to her belt, `Good, the stunning charm kills most of the pain, and helps keep the cauterized flesh from bleeding,' she says, looking at the stump.

Pansy's eyes roll back in her head, and her knees fold, collapsing her to the ground.

Luna kicks her, somewhat gently, in the leg, `It's starting to hurt now, put it back on,' Pansy doesn't move much, so Luna kicks her again, `Come on, wake up.'

`Enervate!' Madame Pomphrey revives Pansy.

Pansy half-rolls to get to her feet, goes pale again at the sight of Luna's hand, still laying next to her.

`Don't you dare faint on me again,' Luna tells her firmly, a bit of strain starting to show in her voice, on her face, `Just put that back on, it's starting to hurt.'

`Right,' Pansy says, picking up the still-warm limb. Once over her shock she works quickly, competently reattaching the hand.

About an hour later, she tells Luna, `All of your fingers oppose properly, and you've got sensation in all of your fingers,' she kisses each one again, just to make sure, then steps back half a pace, turns Luna's chair so it doesn't face the table, and punches her firmly in the nose. It makes a little crunching noise, `And that's for scaring the shit out of me,' she shakes her head, tears flying, `People get hurt enough around me without you hurting yourselves, OK?'

`Oh, that smarts,' Luna says, prodding gently at her now crooked nose with her newly reattached hand, `But you need to know you can work on us, no matter how scared you are for us,' she frowns, `You aren't a very good medic if you faint like that.'

`Put her nose straight, Poppy,' Pansy says, then runs off, crying.

Luna blinks after her, turns helpless eyes on Poppy, then shakes the mediwitch off and runs after Pansy, dripping a trail of brilliant red onto the green grass.

Pansy is running quite fast enough to make Luna's nose throb.

Luna puts on a bit more speed, anticipates and cuts the proper corner, plowing into the slighter girl in a flying tackle. She straddles her, plants her hands on her shoulders, and stares down into her eyes, stepping into her big room, but leaving any contact up to Pansy. Another drop separates from the tip of her nose, and splashes down the side of Pansy's, and Luna smiles, `I do love you, you know,' she says, `That's why I want you to be strong,' she nods, dislodging another drop, which lands on Pansy's chin, `And if all it costs me is a little pain to make you a lot stronger, then I'll pay. Happily.'

Pansy scowls up at her, `I don't want you to pay.'

`You didn't ask, and I didn't offer. I paid, and you're OK, and I'm,' she drips on Pansy's lips, `Dripping, but otherwise OK.'

Pansy brings her arms up between them, knocks Luna's hands off her shoulders, and brings her down to kiss her.

Luna sags against her, snuggling close. Once Pansy breaks the kiss she asks, `Should I leave my nose crooked? Maybe with a little hook? Do you think it would be sexy? I don't think it would be cute, but it might be sexy.'

Pansy smiles up at her, `I like your nose just the way it was.'

`Then why'd you shmush it?'

`Because,' Pansy pauses to think about it, `You pissed me off and scared me spitless. I should have yelled instead, and we could have gotten to the talking and kissing quicker,' she sighs.

`Well, next time you scare me I get to hit you, how's that?' Luna shifts, rocks to her feet, and stands, gathering Pansy princess-style up against her neck.

`I should be carrying you, you're the one who's hurt.'

`I've just got a broken nose,' Luna kisses the top of Pansy's head, `Doesn't hurt much at all, unless I try to run.'

Pansy cuddles close the whole way back to the aid station.

Luna insisted on a little bit of hook, but Pansy made sure Poppy put it straight.

Watching Luna flake dried blood off the front of her tactical red BDUs at dinner chow Poppy is amused to note that, as she guessed, uniform and blood are the same color.

`Could you teach me basic magical first aid?' Hermione asks.

Everyone looks at each other, and nod, `That would be a really good idea,' Ginny summarizes. That quickly comes to take up half of Poppy's time, but Pansy's training proceeds apace as well.

A few weeks later Poppy says Pansy needs to practice what she's learned, but she'd be happy to teach her some more after a few weeks in school.

The new four decided they should head to their beds as well, only giving up on bringing the three with them after getting a promise that the project would be over by Monday evening.

Myrtle gives Pansy a kiss, soft grey hands cupping her face as soft grey tongue licks gently against her lips until she allowed the ghost in. Several minutes later she breaks the kiss again, and smiles at the dazed expression on Pansy's face.

Luna just looks at her, and gestures her over, palm up, fingers together. Myrtle dips her, smiles, and kisses her slightly less thoroughly than Pansy. Luna drops a hand to the ground, smiles lazily up at Myrtle, and languidly gestures her off to Ginny.

Cho and Angharad share a look, and Luna wonders if there is going to be a round-robin as everyone gets a kiss from everyone. She shoves off with her hand and bends her knees, getting to her feet again.

Angharad and Cho just collect Myrtle after she's done with Ginny. Poppy thoughtfully doesn't ask about the flat rolling luggage each of the four has. While not up to the level of a real LA KeepSafe the persona locked weapons cases proved more than a match for the combined forces of Minerva, Hagrid, and Severus, so they decided to bring them out with them.

Times are noted, the door is locked, and the three share a glance, a smile, and, right there on the grass, drop into REM. The three stay, cuddled so close that they are, for the moment, one, and only the dense cores of self they've built keeps them will let them be different people when they separate again. An idle thought leads to a decision to experiment, and they try to shift bodies, gathering the soggy gumdrop core out of somebody's body, then pushing and shoving to get a different gumdrop into it. The first gumdrop falls *shmush* into the body they'd just emptied, and both pout, since the third gumdrop is still in her original body, but the decide to wake up anyway.

Luna blinks her eyes, stares at her newly crooked nose for a moment, then sighs, still in her own body. She turns to her girls, and smiles at the sight of Ginny staring at her hands, playing with them, stroking her fingers. Pansy has her breast cupped in her hand, a big smile on her pretty face as she plays with it, and Luna knows what has to be done now, `Come on,' she stands, helps Pansy up, then just picks Ginny up in her arms as Pansy puts an arm around her shoulders to help her balance Ginny's body.

`Where are we going?' Ginny smiles, her brown eyes twinkling, and cuddles close to Luna's neck, `This is so nice,' she tucks her head under Luna's chin, then pulls back and starts kissing her neck.

`Our bed,' Luna says, `Where we are going to thoroughly examine the ramifications of this experiment.'

`Perfect,' Pansy says, `We'll have to do it again once Ginny and I get our balance back.'

`Yeah, lets stay like this for a few days, if we can.'

`If we've done it, it must be possible, but I don't think it should be.'

Heliconia looks up, nods, and turns the page in the book on dreamwalking she's found. Hotaru is walking the stacks, looking for more.

Pansy looks up at the ceiling, leaning back in a chair, her feet on the table and her long orange hair, in eighteen slender braids, tied to a quarter of its length and still brushing the library carpet, `All the books so far describe a dreamwalker's self as fluid, solvent, always prone to drifting into everyone she runs across, and then taking pieces of them with her when she Walks out.'

`Yes?' Ginny's nibbling on her black hair, face flat on the table. She fancies she can taste a hint of licorice.

`You remember how it felt; we were one liquid blob, with three less liquid blobs of usness inside of it.'

`So we've cooked down a core self that we can keep intact provided we don't hit it too hard, and can move about if we work at it?' Ginny nods, thinking, without lifting her head from the table, `That actually makes sense, sort of, since our big rooms are self-sustaining, like a computer program or AI, and when we're all smushed together our brains might be wired the same, so we can just shove the core program from one processor to the next. That might be useful.'

`But if we have to go into a REM state then we'd probably only be safe somewhere out of sync with the rest of the world. If we don't, then it might be interesting to see how much time it takes to swap a system image to a different processor,' Luna says.

Ginny and Pansy look at each other, frown.

`I wanna play with Luna's breasts,' Ginny says.

`I wanna see you nipple-fuck me,' Pansy says.

`You could just ask,' Ginny tells her.

`But your titties just don't bounce enough,' Pansy says, `It was so hot, my whole body rocking slowly, her tits shifting as she rocks against you,' she smiles, `I probably would have come just from watching you.'

`But you were wanking, so we'll never know,' Luna says, `But I want to watch Ginny, in my body, nipple-fuck you in your own, so swap back, first.'

`That would probably be good, since I'm still tired,' Ginny sighs, `And that was yesterday.'

`Well, I'm glad you,' Luna pauses, `Who watched that porno?' they all look at each other, shrug, `Maybe it was one of the muggles, watched that. Of course, in the porno they only did it for like forty seconds before they gave up and went on to something else.'

`It only started to really feel nice after the first few minutes,' Ginny says, `I really like your pointy little breasts, did I ever tell you that Pansy?'

`About every time we have sex,' Pansy says.

`Oh. Sorry. I almost want to keep them, but if I can borrow them occasionally that'd be fine, too.'

`How long were we at it, anyway?' Luna asks Pansy.

`More than thirty-five minutes.'

Ginny turns her head to look at Pansy again, `Oh, and thank you for being careful with that.'

`Why are you keeping it?'

`I thought you knew, I'm going to give it to Ent.'

Pansy blinks, blinks again, and starts trying to chase the tears off her cheeks with her hands.

Some of that was moot, since the best they manage by their mission time is drop into REM, rotate all three of them sort of randomly, each pushing the next out of her body as they slide into it, and come back out to see who was where. They decide that the technique is good for hot sex but not much else.

Luna is still a little disappointed because her breasts are so big they are hard to control, and her nipples tend to go everywhere except where they're supposed to, unless she uses her fingers, and if she's using her fingers . . . She sighs, pulling on her uniform bra, looks down, and smiles, that just might work . . .

She pulls her top on, almost bouncing, she looks down, well, bouncing a little, and turns to help Ginny and Pansy with their armor.

Ginny's hair is bound up in four short-clubbed braids at the back of her head, same as Luna's, while Pansy's single braid doesn't even reach the base of her neck. They help each other into the heavy steel plate, then check each strap by feel, giving them a little tug to make sure they're tight, since the Adaptive Cloth is difficult to see, even from very close up. They check their ammo loads themselves, sidearms, knives.

Ginny and Pansy each have an alloy-stocked M14D, and they pull their charging handles, checking to make sure they have a round chambered, let them drop.

Luna dumps the TDTs out of the M10R, unloads it completely, then starts loading it back up, chain in the silver tube, turn one, slugs in the blue and green tubes, high-brass 00 buckshot in the gold tube, 10-gage airburst anti-personnel grenades in the purple tube, she taps the rangefinder, and it reports "Self Test Passed", and anti-armor grenades in the red tube. She turns past the red tube one and a half more clicks, putting it under the barrel, ready to feed, holds the feedlock and pulls the action open, drops another AA grenade in the chamber, and drops the bolt, which slides into battery and locks.

`Let's go,' she says.

The other two nod, and follow her to the door.

Ginny notes the time, tucks the book into the armor's helmet, and tells Hotaru, `You stay at Hogwarts, OK? Go to Gryffindor dorm and let Hermione know what happened if we don't come back by morning.'

`Otay!' Hotaru gives her a hug, and scampers onto the armor's helmet.

Ginny gives her belly a gentle rub, then joins the others.

Heliconia pulls herself upright to wave goodbye, then drops back down, hanging by her back hands from the top of the tapestry so she can watch Barnabas dance for the trolls.

Luna leads until they get to the dungeons, then Pansy takes point, the other two closing their old-style BWD, "ballistic, wind, and dust," masks.

Pansy leads them through the Slytherin common room, down the stairs to the fifth-year boy's room, then past it to the Prefects room.

Three quick gestures, and they stack, Ginny at the rear, Pansy on point, and Luna in the middle. Pansy tries the doorknob, which, unusually, doesn't open to her touch. A quick opening charm doesn't help, so Pansy gestures to Luna to breach it.

Ginny's pressed to Pansy's back as soon as Luna's moved, reaching up to pat her thigh.

Luna looks at the door, dearly wishing to put an AA grenade into it, but knowing that will wake the entire dorm, if not the entire school, shifts the M10R completely to her right hand, and draws her light saber. It comes to life with the familiar malignant *snap-hiss* and hums eagerly as she looks at Pansy.

Pansy smiles, taps Ginny, who taps back, then nods to Luna.

Strong, ancient protections moan as they fail, smoke and splinters flying from the door as she cuts the latch out, then kicks it open, cutting off the light saber and returning it to her belt even as she shoulders the M10R again, slides into the doorway and takes up rear security.

`Status, One up,' Pansy says in a calm, indoor voice.

`Two up, prisoner secured,' Ginny says.

`Three up,' Luna says, then swings the door closed and walks over to the bed, where Ginny has Draco's face pressed to the pillow, one arm shoved so far up behind him Luna's surprised it hasn't broken.

Luna grabs his other arm, zip ties him, rolls him over, one gloved hand over his mouth, and looks him in they eyes. She blinks, then looks again. After a long time she sags, whimpering, `He didn't do it. It happened Monday, after he'd already come back to school, and the wand was wrong. He didn't do it.'

`Papa,' Draco whispers, `Papa talks like that, and that thing had Papa's wand.'

Luna stands, and Draco curls up tight, tries to get his hands free, then just pull his body through them, then gives up, sobbing into his pillow, his knees pulled to his chest, `How could he do that? How could anyone do that?' he whimpers, flinching when Luna touches his arm, hardly noticing when she cuts his cuffs beyond wrapping his arms around his knees. When Pansy pulls the covers over him he looks her in the eye, `Make sure he did it, then _kill_ _him_,' he whimpers.

Pansy looks at Luna, who looks back with scared, haunted eyes. Luna takes a deep breath, `I raped the boy, so we damned well better rescue the girl. Can you Floo us to the Malfoy house? Will he be there?'

`Yes, and yes, he should be,' Pansy says.

`This is likely to be No Fun,' Luna says, looking at Ginny.

`This has been mostly No Fun since we started,' Ginny says, `Lets go. Maybe we'll get to shoot some Death Eaters.'

`Oh, that would be lovely,' Pansy says, locking her mask down before leading the way out the door.

`Couldn't hurt,' Luna says, `We're going to be called muggle-lovers, so we might as well be "dangerous, criminally insane muggle-lovers." It's safer that way, really.'

`Yes, it is,' Pansy nods, sweeping the common room as she enters, then grabbing a pinch of Floo powder, `Malfoy Manor,' she says firmly, and throws it on the banked coals. Green flames flare up, and the three of them duck through quickly, to avoid getting attention-catching soot on their Adaptive Cloth camouflage.

`Hold me,' Luna says, making sure the M10R's assault sling won't let her drop the weapon on the floor, then diving into REM as soon as she feels Ginny's hands on her. She sags, but doesn't fall, and Pansy scans the room nervously, they should have found someplace more secluded than in front of the fireplace . . .

`Upstairs, third bedroom. He's with someone, I don't think it's his wife,' she takes point, motions Pansy forward to breach the door that won't open for her. It opens readily for Pansy's override charm, swinging silently open. Luna's sweep and clear is quick, precise, and turns up no one other than the expected two in the bed. The woman's bloody face and frightened, tear-streaked cheeks, however, weren't.

`Sleep,' Luna commands, the wandless magic putting the woman out instantly, her unprotected mind putting up no resistance to a spell strong enough to punch through most barriers. She zip-ties Malfoy, grabs him by his hair, and drags him out of bed.

She holds him up, stretched out helplessly, by his hair, and looks him in the eyes, `Tell me who you worked with,' she grates, then `Who are you working with, and who do you know is a Death Eater. Is your wife? Does she know about this woman? She's sixteen? She works for you, and you treat her like this? Is Voldemort a sniveling coward like you, who can't even beat up a muggle girl without threatening her family first?' She breaks eye contact, turns to Pansy, `He did it, he acted alone at the time, Narcissa knows about the girls, patches them up, and I've got names and faces for his current allies. Do you want to do it, or shall I?'

`Let me,' Pansy says, clicks her mask back, steps up in front of Malfoy's collapsed form, reaches behind her shoulder, `Lucious Malfoy, Rapist. Kneel,' she orders, drawing a gleaming .45SMS from behind her left shoulder, glittering light washing over the polished stainless steel weapon and tracing the gold engraving, `Get up on your knees, or I'll shoot you where you lay,' she tells him. Malfoy gets up with difficulty due to his bound hands, then looks up at her, `Make your peace with your gods.'

Malfoy looks completely lost, but bows his head for a moment.

`When you are ready, look up,' Pansy orders. It takes a few minutes, but then he finally does. Pansy shoots him neatly in the center of the forehead. She drops to one knee next to the puddle of gore to make sure he's dead, then stands, goes over to the girl, `Do you want to run ahead for Narcissa?' she asks.

`No, we don't have enough bodies,' Luna says.

She looks back into the wide, worshipful eyes of the girl, who smiles shakily as Pansy feels for her injuries, then starts healing them, starting with her face.

`I never thought anyone would come save me,' the girl gushes, `But you did Saturn, you came,' she reaches for Pansy.

Pansy pulls back, `Careful, I have more people to save tonight, wipe the blood off first,' she says gently.

The girl gathers up the mostly clean topcover, and wraps the cleaner side around Pansy before sobbing into her breastplate while Pansy heals the worst of the damage. She looks at the others, then tells the girl, `Stay here, we'll be back for you when we leave, and we'll take you somewhere safe.'

`Wilco,' she says, watches as the three bright shadows slip from the room.

Narcissa, thankfully, is alone, Luna notes as she does another quick sweep and clear, and somehow, she gets a whiff, that's how, asleep. She peels her eyelid back, and brushes against her nightmares, Malfoy killing her, Malfoy killing Draco, Malfoy killing her girls, hurting them, the futility of trying to get them out, the sad knowledge that as soon as one of them is almost well Malfoy will hurt them again.

"Wake up, bitch."

"Wha? Who?"

`Why couldn't you turn the bastard in. I want names. Lots of names,' after a moment she sighs, `Just the ones that are still alive. I can't kill the dead ones.'

She sighs again a little later, `Gather all your girls that are here, and meet us at the fireplace in ten minutes.'

It is fifteen minutes later that Narcissa leads nine more girls into the room, `I can't find Mina!' she gasps, then spots the girl behind Ginny.

`Mina!' she cries, dashing up to the girl they saved first, `I'm so glad you're alive,' she hugs the girl tightly to her breast, and the others cluster around protectively.

`Sailor Saturn healed me, after she shot him.'

`Shot him? Was that the noise?'

`Yes! She made him kneel just like on TV, and shot him in the head! Bam!' she laughs, `I wanted to cut his weiner off, but I didn't.'

Some of the girls whine at that.

`Narcissa, you were a Slytherin, right?' Luna asks.

`Yes.'

`I mind-raped your son, thinking he raped my friend. I was wrong, it was your husband. He could use his mother,' Luna looks at Pansy, jerks her chin towards the fireplace.

Pansy grabs a pinch of Floo, tosses it on the grate, `Slytherin Common Room, Hogwarts,' she orders firmly.

`He's in his room. Don't let anyone you don't trust in,' Luna tells her, and points with her chin.

The eleven are gone almost instantly.

Luna looks at the other two, `I've got over a dozen names of people who really need to be killed. We've also got to rescue Ent and her mother, and keep them out of wizard and muggle hands which will fuck them over faster than you can say rumplestiltskin.'

`Molly Weasely,' Pansy says, `Drop them there, explain the situation, and continue raiding until they shut down the Floo,' she shrugs, `Or we run out of names.'

`Better than nothing,' Ginny nods.

`Let's go,' Luna points a the fireplace with her chin again.

`Parkinson Parlor,' Pansy says, and they flow into the new room. She takes point, `Three houses down on the left,' she tells them as they slip out of the house, `Number ninty-three alpha.'

The muggle door opens to Luna's unlocking charm, and she takes up rear security as Pansy and Ginny sweep the hall, then kitchen.

`Oh, fuck,' Ginny says softly, the first words out of them since they left the Parkinson house, `I can feel them, but,' Luna lets the shotgun rest against her chest, and joins them in the unVanishing. Six minutes later *POPOP* two bloody forms are laying on the linoleum-covered floor. Pansy drops next to them, and Ginny conjures a sheet for each of them.

Luna whimpers as the tiny, brown-draped form looks her in the eye, "You came!"

"Told you I would, we would. I'm sorry we took so long."

"You're here, Pansy's here, Ginny's here. Come back in the morning and everything will be fine, I know it," Ent's voice is calm, sure, happy.

Luna feels like crying.

Once she's sure both of them are stable Ginny gathers Natalie's still limp body up in her arms, and Pansy supports Ent, the tactical red sheets dark against the white interior paint.

`Who is it?' a gruff male voice demands, staring right at Ent, but refusing to see her.

`It's Gram, Daddy. You're dreaming.'

`I love you,' he says, suddenly maudlin, `You really should call or write from New Zealand. I know I had your number, but I can't find it, and investigators keep telling me you've never left England, let alone arrived in New Zealand.'

`We'll call soon, OK, Daddy?'

`Thank you. You're OK? Nobody's hurt you?'

`Not too bad, Daddy, and he won't do that again.'

`I'm so sorry, Gram, I should have been there.'

`He would have hurt you too, Daddy. Go to bed, you need to work tomorrow.'

`OK. I love you,' he says, and turns to walk back up the hall towards the bathroom.

Luna quickly leads the way out the door, flicks the doorknob switch to lock the door behind them, and takes point again. Pansy locks her door, then Ginny grabs a pinch of Floo, tosses it in the grate, `The Burrow.'

Alarms are shrieking the moment they arrive, yelling "Danger!" "Muggles!" "Danger!" "Muggles!" "Slytherin!" "Danger!"

`Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! Danger!' Ent says, slipping behind Ginny, who's still holding Natalie.

`Wha?' Natalie starts to stir.

`Shut off that damned noise,' Ginny says, and, to her mild surprise, it goes quiet, `Guess that means I'm an adult,' she mutters.

Ent reaches around from behind to stroke her mother's hair back from her face.

`You Death Eaters need--' Molly Weasley’s voice comes from the hall as she charges down the stairs.

`Mrs. Weasley,' Luna says firmly, `There are no Death Eaters in your house.'

`Oh, there are no Death Eaters in my house.'

`Wake the fuck up, Mom!' Ginny yells in annoyance.

Molly jerks, drops her wand, and blinks at the slightly brighter place her daughter's voice came from, `Ginny? Aren't you at Hogwarts?'

`No, I'm rescuing damsels in distress,' Ginny gripes, `This woman was raped by Lucius Malfoy while he was polyjuiced to look like Draco, as was her daughter, and then Vanished for three years. Her daughter dreamwalked while she was Vanished, and that's how we managed to find and rescue them. Can you keep them safe, out of sight, unObliviated?'

Molly looks up at the tall shadow, and sees the woman wrapped in the dark blanket, then notices the girl behind her, meets her gaze, just for an instant, then drops it, `Yes, I can.'

`Good. The girl's magical reserves are very drained by three years of dreamwalking.'

`I've got just the thing,' Molly turns to Ginny, `Set the woman in the downstairs bedroom, it will be easiest, and,' she turns to the girl, `What's your name?'

`Call me Gram.'

`Gram can either watch her or come with me to the kitchen while I make soup.'

`I'll stay with mom,' Gram says, following Ginny.

Molly rushes to the kitchen, and metal start rattling almost instantly.

`Look out for her,' Ginny says, turns to go, then, `Did you get the pistol class?' she turns back to ask.

`Not most of it, point it, take the safety off, pull trigger, go boom, repeat?' Ent asks.

Ginny dithers a long moment, then draws one of her SMSs, `Don't shoot anyone unless your life, your mother's life, or my mother's life is in immediate danger. Murder, rape, or kidnapping. Got it?'

`Roger,' Ent says, smiling faintly, `Newt should have had a gun.'

`Damn straight. If you keep it covered it shouldn't be noticed, Wizards don't look for guns,' she hands it over grip first.

Ent makes sure it's pointed in a safe direction before she takes it, checks for a round in the chamber, and makes sure the hammer's back and the safety is on. She turns huge eyes on Ginny, `Kiss me.'

`Why?' Ginny asks, already clicking her BWD open.

`So I'll know this isn't a dream, that I won't let my attention wander for a moment and end up somewhere else,' Ent smiles, suddenly, `Because it will make me feel better.'

`OK,' Ginny carefully cups her hand against Ent's hair, leans close, and brushes her lips against the small girl's.

Ent presses back eagerly, brushing her tongue against Ginny's lips.

Ginny lets her in, noticing as she does that Ent's tongue is dry, slimey, tastes of blood and less savory things, and is rough, bumpy, real. She deepens the kiss eagerly, surprised by the way it makes things, not better, but less bad.

Ent breaks the kiss after a long time, and smiles, `Thank you, I liked that.'

`Good. Watch the house, we should be back soon.'

`Do that,' Ent orders.

Molly gets back with soup, `Where did they go,' she asks, then `Are you alright?'

`Yes.'

`Why are you crying?'

`Because I'm scared they won't come back,' Ent says.

`They'll be back,' Molly says, and wraps the girl in an awkward hug.

None of them have ever been in Minister Fudge's house before, and are frankly surprised the Floo took them there so easily, `What kind of bogus security is this?' Pansy whines, `Here we are in a minor war, and you can just walk into anyone's house in the country by asking for it? Is it at least logging who's gone where? I'd prefer locks, but--' she breaks off as Luna wakes.

`He's upstairs, no one else in the house except the house elves,' Luna takes point, and after a quick sweep and clear just kicks him out of bed, leaving his wand on the nightstand, then drops a knee into his solar plexus. He gasps, all the wind driven out of him by the sudden application of over a hundred kilos of girl, arms, and armor, and looks into Luna's eyes, `Did you know Lucius Malfoy liked to rape little muggle girls?'

She digs her knee into his belly, and he whimpers, `Who else do you know likes to do that?' she sags, `Little boys?'

She shakes her head, stands, and steps back, `Kneel, Minister.'

He lays on the floor and shakes his head.

`Kneel, or I'll shoot you where you lay.'

He shakes his head, rolls over, and tries to scramble for the door.

Luna lets the M10R drop, and reaches back for a .45SMS.

Ginny puts two rounds of .30-'97 into him, one in his head, one center of mass. The body is still recognizable, but it won't be an open coffin funeral.

`A few of the names are the same,' Luna says, `But not enough,' she pulls out a pen and pad of paper, and dashes off a quick list, then pulls out her wand and copies it, giving one to each of the others.

`There's thirty names on this list,' Ginny whimpers.

`It reads like the who's who of Wizarding Britain,' Pansy closes her eyes, `Only good thing is that none of our immediate family are on it.'

After the fifth one, they don't let Luna do the interrogation anymore.

After the thirteenth all three of them are rotating. The list hasn't gotten any shorter. The fifteenth's wife, as soon as she realized Fudge was dead, grabbed her little boy and fled.

`What the fuck?' Ginny asked, peeling the man's eyes open again. She drops the zip-tied man, walks back to the door, `Don't let me near him,' she says.

`What did he do?'

`He killed her lover,' she pauses, `After raping both of them, and then made her watch him die.'

`Did you?' Luna asks the man.

`Did he have any names?' Pansy asks.

`Yes, I got those earlier. Only one new one.'

`Eris bless, at this rate it will never end.'

`Yes, I did,' the man answers Luna, and kneels, looks down, looks up, `I'm ready.'

Luna looks at him, expressionless behind her BWD.

`I recognize a Dark Kingdom CPS hit team when I meet one,' he says.

She shoots him, then tells the body, `We're not, but thank you.'

Ten men and one woman later they're down to seventeen names.

Three men later they run out of addresses.

Luna puts up her BWD, and stares out at them from haunted blue eyes, `Hold me?'

Ginny reach out, brushes her gloved fingers down Luna's soft cheek, then closes her mask, pulling her into a hug as she settles on the floor, waving Pansy down with them, `Let's search together.'

Luna nods, and all three of them dive into REM. They hold themselves tight, letting the horror they've been wading through squeeze out, the horrible memories dripping from the surface of their being like ink from a sponge, so they squeeze harder, feeling them break free and evaporate. They wiggle and bounce, trying to shake as much of the taint off as possible, and finally, minutes later, accept that their brilliant gold has deepened a bit, and search for the next name, Bella, where are you?

Who's calling, darlings? Did you see my sister? She's such a sweet piece of ass, isn't she? I love the way she squeals when I put--

`Riddle House, Little Hangleton,' Luna gasps, `They'll be waiting if we Floo in,' she turns the M10R's cylinder one click, `But there are other people there, I don't know what they've done, or why they're there, but if they attack us.'

As they check their magazines Pansy notices, `Ginny, where's your other .45?'

`I left it with Ent.'

`Good,' Luna says.

That is Pansy's opinion on the matter, too, `Thank You.'

`I love you both dearly, and shall be most distressed if you were to bite it, so don't,' Luna orders them.

`I love you, too,' Ginny says, `And I, while I don't want a ghostfriend, if you bite it I expect you back by breakfast the next day.'

`I'll do my best,' Pansy says, `And you'd better do yours, because I'd be very sad without you.'

Checks finished they look at each other a moment, move into a hug, then reluctantly stand.

`So how do we get there?' Ginny asks tiredly, noting that the sky is starting to turn gray.

`It's on the Floo, for some stupid reason or another. What kind of Dark Lord has their own fucking subway stop? It's the same fucking thing,' Pansy grabs a pinch of Floo powder, her fingers shaking a little, `I'm going to have to eat soon,' she tosses it in the flames while Luna and Ginny rub her shoulders, `Litttle,' she pauses, `Cancel. Little,' she stops, sighs, `Cancel. Riddle House, Little Hangleton,' she finally says.

They flow through into a blaring siren, and Death Eaters, some half-robed, some with breakfast smeared in their beards, come charging into the great room. 

The first one to raise a wand takes an AA round to the chest, is thrown backward into the oncoming crowd, and holds them there until the grenade hits the back wall and explodes, killing a half-dozen of them instantly. The sharp, flat *Crack**Crack**Crack* of the two M14Ds on semi accounts for individuals even as the slower *BLAM* *BLAM* turns any group into so much chewed meat. No one surrenders. When they run out of targets Luna starts fishing chain rounds, and replaces what she fired, both chain and slug, with them, feeding them into the tubes one at at time while Pansy, who reloaded fastest, counts bodies and tries to identify them from what remains in their memory. Nine are accounted for, so they sweep and clear the rest of the house. No one living is left, although there are several corpses in various states of decay.

They Floo back to Hogwarts, expecting to be met by Aurorers with arrest warrants. Instead they are met by Severus, who greets them with a crooked smile, `Draco said to tell you, I think, "The deep scan is retroactively authorized. No fault falls on the dreamwalker."'

`Tell him,' Luna sighs, looks down at the M10R still warm in her hands, `"Thank you."'

`I will. Do you have a list?'

`Yes.'

`Does it include addresses and crimes?'

`Addresses on most, an x means rape, a cx means covered for rapists, mx means paid for or found victims for money.'

Severus nods, `And the ones without addresses?'

`We tracked them to Riddle House, Little Hangleton, and killed at least nine of them in pitched battle. The forty dead in the parlor we killed, the dead ones in the rest of the house we found that way.'

Severus watches them start for the door, then turns to look at them, `Oh, it looks like classes will be canceled today while the Ministry reacts to the execution-style killings of so many of its higher-ranked officials. You might want to have Poppy help with your friend, she has,' something flashes behind his eyes, `Far too much experience with that sort of thing.'

The three look at each other, masks still down, then turn and trudge back to the Floo, `Malfoy Manor,' Pansy says, and they step through.

Behind them Severus smiles, `Good, maybe they'll manage it.'

Ent greets them from behind the couch, dressed in a robe that has to be either Ginny or Harry's, none of other's would fit even that well, lifts the .45 as soon as she sees who it is, `Good of you to come back.'

`I'm glad to see you on duty,' Luna tells her.

`Mom, it's them,' Ent calls over her shoulder.

Natalie Potter walks into the room, a little gingerly, but hale, dressed in one of Ron's robes.

`If you want,' Pansy looks at both of them, seeing the difference in their expressions, the acceptance bought with three years of dreamwalking and self-healing in Ent's face, and the still raw pain in her mother's, `We can take you to Hogwarts, and Madame Pomphrey can help you.'

`Molly,' Natalie stops, `Mrs. Weasley, knows a counselor who won't make me forget it to try and "fix" me.'

`Ent?'

`No doctors. Not yet. Not without you there,' she looks at all three of them.

`OK, then let's go,' They bounce through eight different houses, and dart across a street once to muddy the trail further before they hear someone yelling behind them as they vanish into the Floo at Malfoy Manor.

They watch for five minutes, but no one comes out of the fireplace.

Luna looks up at Severus, `We're going to go sleep for a week. Send Madame Pomphrey by at,' she pauses, looks at the clock over the door, then looks back at Severus, `What the fuck time is it now?'

`Almost seven.'

`Seven thirty then, if you please.'

Angharad and Cho meet them outside the door to the Slytherin dungeon, take one look at their exhausted posture, and escort them silently up towards the BTC. Hermione, Ron, and the Hexies are waiting by the locked door, and Luna unlocks it while Ginny notes the times, then follows them in.

Pansy stares at the group for a moment, then sighs, `Open the door,' she tells Luna, `You five, out,' she waves, `You too, Makoto. We're too tired now, we're going to crash, shed out, take a bath, something like that. You can talk to us in a few hours, so go out there where we don't have to put up with you for a few minutes.'

Ron looks offended, but the others grab him and pull him out the door.

Ginny pulls it closed, Luna locks it, and only sheer cussedness keeps all three of them from laying down on the grass and going to sleep. Cussedness and a selfish desire not to clean grass stains out of their Adaptive Cloth.

Ent finds the Dark Kingdom bathroom comforting, a familiar setting she'd seen a dozen times before, and there's always someplace easily accessible to lay her sidearm as she scrubs the last of the blood from her body, then Pansy's gentle hands wielding a cloth go over her back. She turns, crying, and grabs her girl close, kissing her neck before cuddling even closer.

All four of them fall asleep in the bath, but no one drowns and the water doesn't get cold, so it is several hours before they crawl into their bed.

`You want the center again?' Ginny asks, tucking her .45 under her pillow.

`Yes, please,' Ent answers, pulling the tall girl down by her shirt so she can kiss her, `Thank you.'

She hugs Luna tight, kisses her, slips one hand up under her shirt to cup her breast, `Wow, they are that big,' she smiles, `Thank you.'

Last she turns back to Pansy, cuddles her close, and kisses her deeply, `Thank you.'

Two days later, Ent clad in woodland camo, they open the door and let the others in.

Six weeks later they open the door again, and Madame Pomphrey is there, Ginny notes the times, five minutes early.

`That's a standard side effect of prolonged Vanishing, an age-lock for an equivalent period of time,' Poppy says, holding Ent's tiny hands, `But age-locks, temporary ones, anyway, aren't terribly uncommon, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get you into fourth or fifth year.'

Ent looks up at her girls, then asks, `Do I have to be sorted? I'll probably be a 'puff or something,' she frowns.

`It's not a bad thing to be in Hufflepuff,' Poppy says, `But I'm sure you'd want to be with your girls.'

`So, do I get the hat, or what?' Ent smiles, suddenly amused by what she just said.

`If you tell the hat what you want, it will try to accommodate you,' Poppy tells her, `Or we can probably just say we're putting you in a House so that one of the others can help show you around.'

`Let me meet the people I'd be rooming with?' Ent asks.

`After breakfast?'

Ent nods.

A month later they walk out for breakfast chow.

Ent is less skinny already, corded muscles under her brown t-shirt and woodland BDU bottoms, tiny black jungle boots on her feet. She has point of her formation, Luna and Pansy on either flank and a little back, and Ginny behind her, all three of them in tactical red. Poppy follows, almost laughing at the looks they are getting from their fellow students, then Ron, Harry, Hermione and Cho. Heliconia is sitting on the top of Ent's head, holding onto her short brown hair to keep from falling off. Hotaru is curled in Poppy's hair, pretending, when she isn't wiggling around to look at things, that she is a hat.

Everyone turns to look at them the moment they step into the Great Hall, and they stare for a long moment as Poppy walks up to the head table. Several Slytherins fall out of their chairs when Pansy sits down next to Mabel Lister, and Ent sits down on the other side. Someone falls off the Gryffindor table when Ginny and Luna sit down across from them.

Mabel seems flattered by their gentle flirting, and breakfast goes quickly.

Afterwards the group makes the rounds, and the Gryffindor dorm, `Well, I don't worry so much that they're going to attack me if I go to sleep, so with Ginny in the bed too, and,' she mimes putting something under her pillow, `I should be OK.'

`Good,' she waves all four of them up into her bed, and, after a long moment's thought, drops a silencing charm on the curtains, `The others want this, too, but they need to ask themselves,' she pauses, takes a deep breath, lets it out, `Would you marry me?'

Ent blinks, `Sure, when?'

`Will you marry me?' Pansy says seriously.

`Me too! Me too! Marry me too!' Luna bounces on the bed, a great big smile on her face and in her eyes.

`Nice,' Ent flops back on the bed, `Of course,' she smiles up at the canopy, `With that silencing charm on the curtains we could have loud, passionate sex in this bed and so long as the bed doesn't collapse they'll never hear it?'

`Pretty much.'

`Can we get my Daddy here tonight?'

`Probably,' Ginny says, looking at Luna, who nods.

`Your families?'

`Some of them,' Pansy says.

`The ones of them who won't mind you marrying the trumped-up muggle and pair of nutjob witches you're soul-bonded with?'

Luna closes her eyes, smiles, laughs, and falls over backwards, `That is what we've done, isn't it? My father can be here tonight if I can catch him before about noon.'

`We could put it off 'til tomorrow or Wednesday,' Ent says, a bit reluctantly.

`We could just put the public ceremony off 'til then,' Ginny says, elbow-walking up to look down into Ent's eyes.

`But it would look funny if you showed up in parade blacks with "POTTER" on them,' Ent shifts up on her elbows and kisses Ginny.

`You don't want to make us dig out the Class Ones?'

`Nope. I'd say Class Fours, but I know you'd demand something horribly ornate for each of us.'

`Doesn't every bride want a gorgeous dress and a big wedding?' Pansy asks. She gets three dumb looks turned her direction, `Just me, I guess. Last time I wanted to get married I was thinking about a great big wedding out by the lake with you in a green-blue dress that matches your eyes, and the sunset shining behind you and making your hair glow,' she laughs, eyes closed, `But I'd settle for getting our heads knocked together while slogging through mud up to your ass in the middle of the night in a thunderstorm, and be happy.'

`That's so sweet,' Ent gushes. All three of them are looming over Pansy, and take turns kissing her.

`Nice dresses, in the chow hall, tonight at dinner, and if they can't make it, fuck 'em, they can look at the pictures?' Ginny asks, `My dad'll be pissed he missed it, but,' she shrugs.

`He's probably got the day off, too,' Luna says, `That should work. I'll owl my father?' she looks at the others.

Pansy and Ginny both nod.

`Someone's going to have to pick Daddy up, and give him a good story.'

`If my folks show, they'll be happy to bring him.'

`Mum can bring your mother,' Ginny says.

`Boo, now I need to find a dress!' Ent laughs, delighted.

Pansy and Ginny share a happy look over her head.

They sit at the Slytherin table, and Draco is ragging on Crabbe and Goyle for something they said when owls arrive with a special edition of the Daily Profit arrives, and Luna rolls hers out, smiling at the headline:

SAILOR MOON IS EVERYBODY'S MOTHER

Vigilantes dressed as Sailor Moon characters raided forty-one houses last night, using the Floo network to move undetected by the Death Eater scum they were hunting. Eighty Death Eaters were killed last night, most after giving up names of their fellows. Thirty-six were child-rapers. Seven were Ministry officials who covered for them. Five took money to procure victims. Twenty-eight died in a brutal slaughter as they tried to attack the Vigilantes, who mowed them down in the house of He-who-must-not-be-named's father, Tom Riddle, Senior. Death Eaters had been living in the house for several months, according to forensic wizards, but they could neither confirm nor deny if He-who-must-not-be-named was present in the house at any time in the recent past, although they have confirmed the presence of several Dark Creatures.

A complete list of the dead will be released following notification of their heirs.

Acting Minister of Magic Amelia Bones is moving to find any living heirs of Tom Riddle, Senior, or raze the house within the week. Any heirs should present themselves at the Minsitry by Five O'clock Friday afternoon, as the demolitions are scheduled for Saturday morning.

`Why didn't they do that sooner?' Angharad asks from the Ravenclaw table, where she and Myrtle are sitting next to Cho.

`Because they hadn't had forty people massacred there yet,' Severus says from the high table, `And no one had shown how weak the Death Eaters actually are. Girls in short-skirted Sailor Suit costumes wiped out eighty Death Eaters, many of them sadistic villains who enjoy rape and torture, probably veterans of the first war, without any losses, without, apparently, even getting any blood on themselves. Who would be afraid of an enemy like that?'

`Someone who has been told she can't use `Stupefy' on an assailant without going to jail?' Harry asks.

Severus sighs, `Quite likely, Potter. Five points to Gryffindor.'

Owls come back throughout lunch, and Ginny approaches her brother and the others about performing the ceremony.

They agree readily.

Ginny drops to one knee in front of Ent, once she finds her digging through Lavender Brown's closet, `Ent,' she looks around, Lavender isn't paying them much attention. Parvati has her fingers tight in Lavender's still-pink hair, and is snogging her quite thoroughly, `I,' she pauses again, looks down, `This is just because I think,' she pauses again, `This isn't a wedding present. My maidenhead, it's yours, to take, to have, to give away, whatever. It's not much--'

Ent has dragged her down, and is kissing her quite well. Ginny thinks about falling over when Ent lets her go.

`Thank you,' she says, her eyes misting, `Now go away so I can find a dress good enough to marry you in.'

`I'd be happy with you in a pillow case,' Ginny says, then pauses, continues, `But only if it's a big one, at least down to mid-thigh, and a belt would be nice on it,' she nods, `And a tiara, so everyone could tell just what kind if wonderful person was in the pillowcase, without trying to look, 'cause then most of them would have to die, and that wouldn't be any fun, I've killed too many people this year--'

Ent shuts her up by kissing her again, `I said go.'

`Going, going,' Ginny wanders out, a great big grin on her face.

Ent, dress secured, goes in search of Luna, and finds her in the Library, looking through a book.

Luna looks up, `What can I do for you?'

`Well,' Ent looks down, `Ginny didn't think it's worth much, but she gave me her maidenhead, to do with as I pleased. In muggle 'fic, blood magic is powerful, and one's virgin blood is good for protective spells, so,' she looks up at Luna hopefully.

`It is, and it can be, and I wish I could ever find any trace of one in me, but one of my great-great-great grandmothers or something was Veela, so,' she shrugs, `I probably never had one,' she shakes her head, `But I remember the book, it may take me a while to find it again?' she looks hopefully at Ent.

`I didn't want to do anything with it tonight, I still need to work on catching up to the rest of my class, but we could work it out over the next couple weeks?'

`That sounds good,' Luna nods.

Ent leans over the table and snogs her a moment, then walks out, passing a grumpy-looking librarian. At the door she stops, turns back, and kisses the librarian, steps back, gives her a happy smile, and barely keeps from skipping on her way out the door.

All four of them sweep into the Great Hall separately, Ginny in a golden brown, Pansy in black, Luna in a steel grey, and Ent, last, in a brilliant green-blue satin several shades deeper than Hermione's still-green hair.

Minerva casts a Sonorus, and addresses the crowd, `Students and Guests, we have something special tonight, for the first time since 1694, we will be having a wedding between Hogwarts Students, here, in our Great Hall. Will the brides come forward?'

Ginny, Ent, Luna, and Pansy step up onto the dais.

`Choosing to share their joy with us tonight, Pansy Parkinson, Slytherin,' Pansy bows, `Luna Lovegood, Ravenclaw,' Luna bows, `Ginny Weasley, Gryffindor,' Ginny bows, `And transferring in for spring term, Pentagram Potter, Gryffindor,' Ent comes to attention, then salutes. Several of the guests salute back, and she drops her salute.

`Would the,' she looks at her notes, `"Saints" come forward.'

Hermione, Ron, Cho, and Harry step up onto the dais, Myrtle coming along to play with Harry's hair.

`Performing the ceremony,' Minerva continues, `Angharad Potter, Gryffindor,' Harry salutes, `Ronald Weasley, Gryffindor,' salute, `Hermione Granger, Gryffindor,' salute, `and Cho Chang, Ravenclaw,' she salutes, and then they all drop their salutes.

Harry casts her own Sonorus, `The brides have chosen a Discordian wedding ceremony, that of the Hope Evangelical Cabal. No, this isn't a mugging,' she smiles at the crowd, and Dallas Johnson, one of the Gryffindor firsties, almost faints in joy at the sight.

The four join hands, and their Saints take up positions, Ron behind Ginny, Harry behind Luna, Hermione behind Ent and Cho behind Pansy.

`On three,' Hermione reminds them.

`Bend your knees a little, you're too tall,' Ron mutters to Ginny.

Three of the brides try to crouch down so they're shorter, and Ent goes up on her tiptoes.

Hermione nods once, all of the Saints nod for "two," then again for "three." With remarkable precision considering none of them actually practiced the move, the Saints each take a bride by the back of her head and shove her forward *THOCK*

All four brides rock back, rubbing their foreheads.

`You're married, you poor sods!' the Saints chorus. The brides fall to kissing, crying, and generally being a spectacle.

`All right, get back to yer seats,' Hagrid orders, `Congratulate them on the way out of here.'

Umbridge is blubbering happily, feeding Hexy bits of pumpkin pasteys, and positively beaming at Harry. Harry meets her gaze, is confused, and looks away.

Dumbledore comes in the back door, `What did I miss?'

`The new girl married Ginny, Pansy, and Luna,' Minerva tells him.

`I didn't know she was a priest.'

`She got married t'em,' Hagrid says helpfully.

`That's quite excellent. Did any of them change their names?'

`All of them took the new girl's name, Potter.'

`So now we've got five Potters? A veritable population explosion,' his eyes twinkle.

Some weeks later, a tired, sweaty, happy, blood-marked Ginny asks, `So, there seems to be some left, may I have it back?'

`If you wish,' Ent says, and brushes Ginny's hair back from the character she'd drawn there. She checks, again, the marks on Pansy and Luna, then lays back when Ginny presses her down between the two.

Ginny's fingers are careful, practiced, as she carefully paints the first character below Ent's bellybutton with what is, once again, her blood, `With this, my virgin blood,' she says, then paints the second character centered, just beneath her breasts, `I mark,' and the third, on Ent's forehead, `and protect you.'

Ent smiles at her wives, feeling safer, perhaps, than she's ever felt before.

\- Fin -

Omake:

The two race for the large double doors, fling one leaf open, and Harry darts through, pauses, grabs her wand, and demands, `accio broom!'

She sees a smile flit over Severus's face as she mounts the broom and darts upward. Her course would be impossible for anything that either needed to deal with inertia or had a thrust-to-weight ratio of less than two hundred and fifty to one, or with slower reflexes. Ranma, scared out of her wits and going all-out, like in the Sailor Moon TXD movie, could have beat her time. Nothing else human could have made the seven hundred and sixy-five meters and twelve six-meter radius ninety degree turns in 6.34 seconds. But no one was timing it, so no one knew anything more than the fact that Snape had just won Umbridge's eternal hatred.

Snipped because it really doesn’t add anything, and interrupts the flow.

\--- Log:  
2007/Jun/30: Woke up with this crawling around in my head. Started pulling it out.

2007/Jul/1: Realized as I began writing again this morning that I've been spelling dilation wrong for _years_. And OK is a really _useful_ word for being one that no Wizarding World person would use . . . The second dream sequence -- um.

2007/Jul/2: Still working.

2007/Jul/3: And more . . . Hexy is based on the Darwin Project's Hexley, but Harry's memory for strange muggle things isn't as good as it could be, so she's a little different.

2007/Jul/4: What makes the green grass grow? Blood, blood, bright red blood. Sorry, bayonet training flashback. Finished first draft, five days, 169K. One might almost think I could write ^_^ 

2007/Jul/5: Read it through, fixed some inconsistencies, fixed some typos, added another kiss . . . and a title block.  
2017/Jun/26: Killed some spelling problems and edited for posting to AO3


End file.
